


Game On

by hylander



Series: Game On [1]
Category: Hit the Floor (TV)
Genre: (a bunch of those), Alternate Universe - High School, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, look inside for side-pairings - Freeform, ratings will go up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-06-02 08:39:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19437868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hylander/pseuds/hylander
Summary: Ten years after his father shipped him off to boarding school, Jude is back to Los Angeles for his senior year. As it turns out, relinking with his childhood friend isn't nearly as hard as it is to deal with his almost estranged father. Zero is the typical high school heartthrob and a basketball prodigy on the way to make a name for himself. Everything should be easy, but years in foster care and physical abuse don't make for the smoothest reunion with former teen-mom  and her perfect family.Really. They have a lot on their plate already. Falling in love wasnotsupposed to be an option.(new version of an existing work!)





	1. Jude

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! it's been a while since i've contributed to this fandom, but life kept getting in the way 😞 i figured i wanted to rewrite this fic while i was in the middle of writing the first follow-up to this with them in college, so if you feel like you've already read something similar it might be because it was the first (and old and horrible) version. I hope you'll enjoy this one, which will be longer than the first one and feature a couple of changes here and there from the original work 💕

Jude Kinkade was many things.

Unfortunately, hopelessly naïve was one of those. _Especially_ when it came to certain matters, he thought bitterly as he stared, probably for the umpteenth time that very morning, at his still desperately silent phone.

 _C’mon, it’s not that big of a deal, Kinkade_.

 _I’ll call you when I get home_.

Yep. Jude had been just that naïve apparently, he had been waiting for that exact thing to happen ever since, and it had already been five days.

The clicking sound of a pair of high heels caught his attention, and Jude quickly buried his phone in his jean pocket, affectedly tugging at his grey shirt while staring at his own reflection in the full-length mirror. Lionel Kinkade, _née_ Hemsworth, and formerly known as Davenport, leaned against the doorframe of her stepson’s bedroom, heaving a loud sigh as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Jude, honey, could you stop moping? It’s going to be just fine.”

Jude lifted his hazel eyes to her through the mirror, grumpily chewing at his bottom lip. “Being the new kid always sucks,” he grumbled.

Eight years of boarding school and here he was, back in Los Angeles for his senior year, as if all those years in-between had meant nothing. At a goddam public school, of all things. Don’t get him wrong, he hardly _cared_ about the standing of his school, or the rankings, or whatever, really. He just wished he hadn’t been forced to abandon everything and everyone he knew, one random morning a month into the school year, just because his dad had suddenly decided he needed to.

“See it as an adventure. It’s scary but it could lead to some fun along the way,” his stepmom shrugged, like it was no big deal.

He gave her a pointed look. “I’ll be in this school for less than _three months_. What’s even the point? Dad could have left me at Ellis Harwood, that would have been just as fine,” Jude protested, shoving his hands in his jean pockets.

He felt like they had had this conversation a thousand times already, and maybe they had, judging by the look on Lionel’s face. Was it _his_ fault if his father was almost never around? What was he supposed to do, just _not_ complain to the only other person in this house who didn’t belong to the cleaning staff?

Lionel waved dismissively. “Come on, you know he didn’t want that stupid story to affect your records.”

Jude huffed and shook his head.

If only the Principal of Ellis Harwood Institute, ME., hadn’t had the _brilliant_ idea to flee the country with the donations made to the school by the wealthy parents of his students, then maybe Jude would have had the time to prepare before everything was packed up and he was on a plane back to Los Angeles. The problem was that no private school in the whole _country_ seemed to be accepting students out of the blue after the beginning of the first quarter, so Oscar Kinkade was told that money or not, his son would not start afresh until January. Unless, of course, he went to a public school. Jude wished he didn’t have to endure his father’s tantrum when he was told about it, but he did — at length.

Lionel finally stepped into the bedroom, affectionately adjusting the shirt on Jude’s shoulders, brushing away an invisible speck of dust.

“You’ve dealt with a bunch of rich assholes for eight years, _that_ was scary,” she observed, then a wicked smile formed on her full lips: “ _Everybody_ will want to get to know you, trust me. Time has made wonderful work of you.”

Instantly, Jude sarcastically snorted and looked away. In the course of the last year and a half, he had matured to a point where people everywhere were starting to notice him. Not in a weird, reproachful way, but with something that looked ridiculously close to approval. Attention was hardly the worst of his daily struggles, though. He had yet to get used to his quickly developing body, an upgraded version much taller and with much broader shoulders. As if all of a sudden his nearly ten years of swimming competitions had decided to catch up with him. He had been bumping his head, his shoulders, his knees, his elbows — literally any part of his body, really — more often during the last year than ever before in his entire life.

Kids always wanted to be taller, but nobody ever warned them about the downside of being _tall._

The only positive so far? He had stopped feeling ridiculously self-conscious about his size in an all boy-school, but _even that_ had been taken from him now.

Lionel glanced at her sparkling Cartier watch with a hint of disdain. “We should get going. I once learned at my expense that being fashionably late in high school is highly frowned upon.”

Jude rolled his eyes and went to grab his Eastpak from the empty desk. Most of his bedroom was still empty, save for the bookshelves that were literally crumbling under the weight of voluminous sci-fi novels that he used to devour a lifetime ago, and his trophies and medals in a corner that served as a reminder of his glory days on the swim team.

Jude half-heartedly followed his stepmom, barely listening to her pep-talk as they were heading downstairs.

Three months. It wasn’t like a lot could happen in less than three months.

Right?

*

 _Wrong_.

A _lot_ could happen in _almost_ three months.

Jude stared, glowering, as Lionel’s ridiculously ostentatious red Porsche pulled away from the school’s sidewalk, drawing attention to her from every person within hearing distance.

What a way to be discreet.

He was going to _kill her._

He forced a tight smile at the students who were looking at him, then he turned back and tried to drown himself in the flow of students heading for the doors marking the main entrance of the building.

Hollow Creek High was one massive block of concrete, almost popping out of nowhere at the corner of a street, buzzing with the energy of the city’s traffic and the warm, glowing Californian sun. It was a far cry from Ellis Harwood, sticking out of the woods and spreading its dozen different buildings over a glorious, perpetually tender-green field of grass, like the $45,000 a year hypocritical post-card it was. Since Internet and the technological revolution had hit the educational system, transferred students were receiving their new schedules by email, which was nice in a way because it meant he could skip the part where he’d have to present himself to the secretary’s office.

The problem was that he was literally walking in without knowing a single thing about the place.

And now he was standing in the middle of the hallway.

_Okay, Kinkade._

_It’s gonna be fine._

When he was done with his own personal affirmation, he looked up and was startled by a pair of blue eyes staring at him, belonging to a blonde girl leaning on a nearby wall. She didn’t shy away when he glanced back at her, instead, a frown soon appeared on her face as she was tugging at a strand of her hair. Jude couldn’t help but look behind his shoulder, which gave the girl enough time to disappear among the other students.

The bulletin board, where she had been standing, didn’t look like the worst thing to pretend to care about at the moment. He’d have pretty much cared about _anything_ if it didn’t mean that he was standing there like an idiot. A quick glance at the board had him reconsidering his options, given that the only information on display were for last spring’s cheerleading try outs and last year’s prom night, he could only guess that no one really cared to update things here.

Great, he definitely looked like an idiot now. Jude retrieved his phone from his pocket to check the room number of his first class for the hundredth time, then looked up only to see the signs pointing in the right direction right above his head.

Second floor, then according to-

“Jude?”

Jude startled and scooted around, his eyes dropping onto two girls standing beside him.

He recognized one of them (the blonde one) as the girl who had been staring at him not a minute ago; her friend was a fairly shorter brunette, with straight dark hair, for some reason, she looked strangely familiar to him. _She knows your name dummy, of course she’s familiar!_ a voice yelled at him in his head.

“Uh, yeah?” he cleared his throat, furrowing his brow.

The blonde girl lost her pout and nudged her friend, grinning. “You owe me ten bucks.”

“Oh my God, it’s me,” the brunette said, ignoring her friend, “Raquel. Raquel Saldana. Remember?”

For a moment his mind went blank. Oh no, would she be upset if he couldn’t remember her? Then an intense memory of burnt cookies and birthday parties by the pool in his backyard crossed his mind. So what does this mean? He just walked into a brand new school and stumbled across the _one girl_ he had known since he was _born_ , and who had been his best friend until he turned 8 and was shipped off to the other side of the country? Could it be _that_ simple?

_Really?_

If he had another second to think about it he’d definitely start looking for hidden cameras, but suddenly things felt like they were going way faster than what his mind was ready for.

“Oh God, it’s been _forever_ ,” he sputtered awkwardly.

Raquel started grinning too. “Something like ten years. You remember Kyle?”

“Hart. Kyle Hart,” Jude said automatically without really knowing what had happened. 

Where did that came from though? As far as he was concerned, an hour before he was feeling like he was in a whole different country. He wouldn’t have even been surprised if people were speaking a foreign language around here.

“My memory is definitely still working,” Kyle declared, very pleased with herself. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were in a fancy school or something.”

Jude was a little taken aback. He had certainly not thought this situation would happen and he hadn’t planned on discussing the ‘fancy boarding school’ side of his life, but here he was. “I, uh, I just got transferred… um, here.”

The girls exchanged glances.

“No way,” Raquel exclaimed. “What happened?”

Jude waved. “There’s been a bit of a… well, a mess at my school, but that’s, like, a long story.”

Raquel turned to Kyle. “Talking about mess, wasn’t Blondie supposed to meet with Geyer this morning?”

Kyle groaned. “Yeah, but he left before I woke up. I love him but I swear I want to smash his head in at times.” Not even a second later she stood up on her tiptoes and glanced around in the crowd. “Have you seen Jelena? We were supposed to talk about music stuff for our routine.”

“She told me she went with the guys,” Raquel shrugged.

Jude shoved his hands in his pockets, balancing his weight on his heels as he tried to look like he wasn’t listening to things that were none of his business. It was hard when the only two people you knew were the ones doing the talking and you literally had nothing else to do in the meantime. He considered going to find his class on his own when suddenly the girls seemed to remember his presence.

“I gotta go,” Kyle said, more to Raquel than to him, but then she gave him a nice slap on the arm that he wasn’t exactly expecting from someone like her. “See you later, guys.”

Raquel nodded and Kyle disappeared among the other students.

“Sorry, we’ve had our own drama too, lately,” Raquel said as she started walking. “Anyway, it’s so great to have you back in town. Do you need a tour?”

Jude smiled, a little embarrassed. “I guess I just need to go find my teacher first, you know, to tell him who I am and stuff.”

He just hoped to limit the chances of his new teacher making him stand in front of the whole class and introduce himself. Not that he minded much talking in front of an audience, he didn’t at all in fact. He _just_ didn’t want anybody to make a big deal. His only consolation in coming into a public school was to drown himself in the flow of students and so far he couldn’t say it had worked very well.

“Who’s your teacher?” Raquel asked, tugging at her choker, cocking her head.

“Gibbins,” Jude replied, and she immediately snorted, grabbing his arm.

“Then you’ve got _plenty_ of time to tour around,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “He doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone. Last year we had this exchange student, Loy. Gibbins didn’t find out he wasn’t a native speaker until after Christmas,” Raquel explained as she dragged him in the opposite direction.

Jude scrunched his nose.

 _Great_.

What were the odds that the good Mr. Gibbins would ask him every day who he was and what he was doing here?

The next ten minutes with Raquel flew by before he even noticed, but Jude found a way to figure out a few things. One of them was that he wasn’t in some prank show; apparently he _had_ found his childhood friend five minutes after showing up. Also, he was positively screwed, as far as he was concerned. Raquel was one of the popular crowd here, and having her show him around was more like “showing him off”, which would have been flattering had he not planned to keep a low profile until his next transfer after Christmas.

He sucked it up however, because knowing where the Cafeteria was seemed important, and not something he’d come to regret by lunch time. Raquel was also taking her role very seriously when it came to giving him the fully detailed version of the school’s social hierarchy as they progressed through the crowded hallways.

“So, Kyle is on the Cheerleading squad, as is my best friend Jelena, who happens to be the squad Captain. Don’t ever think that they’re here just to cheer on the guys, because they’d scratch your eyes out. It’s a competitive squad and they take it pretty seriously. You’ve been warned,” she added with a knowing look.

Jude promised himself he’d do more than try, even though he knew nothing about cheerleading anyway. Being in an all-boy school, they were represented by their sister-school, and the students from Parkland were carted in to their events to sway their hips and sing a school anthem that wasn’t theirs… You could definitely find better in terms of girl power.

“Baseball team,” Raquel told him as they passed by an open door where a few guys were fussing loudly in the empty classroom before first period. “They are attractive and friendly for the most part, but they aren’t going to fix global warming anytime soon.”

Jude huffed a laugh. “We had the same with the water polo team. How many sports do you guys have over here?”

Raquel gave it a thought. “Baseball is a bit of a go-to for the freshman kids. They don’t do so great but it’s always nice to be a part of something, I guess. We used to have a male water polo team but the girls’ got all the medals and the coverage so they mixed both at one point and now there are only girls. I used to be in it but I quit last year,” she went on. “We’ve got a swim team,” she said after that, pointing to a dozen students heading down the stairs. “Weird people, strictly assholes. They only hang out together and you can tell that they don’t like you already.”

Jude forced a smile and nodded politely. It wasn’t new to him, swim teams generally had this reputation everywhere, except that back in Ellis Harwood, he was on the other side of it and things were just fine, assholes or not. He risked a somewhat longing look in their direction. He wasn’t supposed to apply for this club, or at least he hadn’t wanted to so far. What was even the point of getting into a brand new routine if he was going to disappear just before the launch of the season?

But _God_ , in that moment, he missed his former school.

His childhood friend’s continued exposé managed to regain his attention as she kept speaking. “Footballers range from ‘trashiest asshole’ to ‘happy puppy’, there’s no real pattern and sometimes they can switch faces at any given moment,” Raquel commented, slightly scrunching her nose. “Of course, there’s the Cheerleading squad, and that leaves the Basketball team. We’ve got a soft spot for that one because three of our friends are playing. Jelena’s boyfriend is the team Captain. They are cool, you’ll see. Come on, I’ll take you to your class.”

*

It was shortly before lunchtime before Jude got sight of Raquel again, after she guided him to his first class, but in the meantime he had been introduced to her best friend. Jelena Howard was a small girl, literally tiny, with full lips, brown skin, and curly brown hair framing her face. She was undoubtedly good-looking, but in a much colder way than Kyle or Raquel -- which, strangely enough, didn’t particularly discourage Jude.

“I’ve been to boarding school,” Jelena had told him to his surprise between two classes, when he had tiredly explained once again that he had been out of town for the last decade or so. “But it was only for a year, before I moved to LA with my mom.”

“I’m a veteran then,” Jude had snorted, and when she smiled in response, he felt like it was something he should be proud of.

The rest of the morning had dragged on, and between unknown faces of the students and unknown faces of the teachers, his brain was having a hard time processing everything — honestly, he had stopped caring by the third period. The Spanish teacher, whom he had forgotten the name of, had him stand and present himself to the class (which didn’t exactly make Jude like him). But he was the only one to do so and he counted that as a small win.

“How did it go?” Raquel grinned at him in sympathy when they found themselves together in the Cafeteria.

“Fine, I guess,” he admitted, because all in all, it could have been a lot worse.

The facilities, the food, even people’s clothing overall were a thousand times cheaper than what he had been used to since he left Los Angeles for his first private school, but he could probably survive it for three months without much trouble if that meant not being called out as the outsider.

Raquel strode through the Cafeteria with her vibrantly yellow tray in hand.

One more thing he had to get used to. For three years he had been seeing life in shades of orange and green, the colors of Ellis Harwood, while Hollow Creek High’s were black and bright yellow.

Jude followed her to a table where Kyle was already sitting opposite another guy he hadn’t met yet. Raquel sat next to the guy and Jude took the spot next to the blonde. The guy had short black hair, and his skin was a warm, golden-brown that made his silver nose piercing stand out. His most distinctive feature was definitely his dark eyes, mostly because he was staring sternly at Jude, likely trying to figure him out.

“Roman, you remember Jude? We were in third grade together,” she said naturally as she gestured between them.

“I can’t remember shit like that, c’mon,” he huffed, shaking his head. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Jude snorted.

Raquel rolled her eyes. “Derek, Jude. Jude, Derek.”

Jude gave him one of the hundred polite nods he had been giving all morning, then he saw Jelena casually walking in from the corner of his eye, two boys on either side of her who could have easily passed as her bodyguards. They couldn’t be more different, except for their matching size. One had a dark complexion, the face of someone who was everybody’s friend, and shoulders that would have made a few NFL players feel self-conscious; Jude recognized him without any trouble from her phone background he had caught a glimpse of between periods. 

The other one?

The other one had sandy blond hair, perfectly chiseled cheekbones and electric blue eyes glaring around like he was on the verge of murdering someone. 

The pure, authentic, stereotypical Californian beauty. With an extra ‘I’ll-be-the-last-thing-you-see-before-you-die’ vibe.

 _Oh hell no_ , Jude thought categorically as he tried to ignore the horrible backflip his stomach made, unable to take his eyes away.

_Not a fucking chance._

_I’m not doing that again._


	2. Zero

“You didn’t have to scare that poor kid.”

“He shouldn’t have fucking stared at me.”

“He was peeing.”

“Whatever,” Zero retorted grumpily as they made their way to their usual table.

Today though, he deeply hated that this table was located right in the middle of the Cafeteria. He could feel the glances of people on him as they walked by, and he clutched the water bottle tightly in his hands as a means to keep himself from bursting one way or another.

“Ladies and gents, our resident defendant,” Terrence drawled, sliding an arm around his shoulders as they hovered by their table.

“I’m gonna smash your fucking head, you know that, right?” Zero gritted, shoving him away.

Terrence laughed. It wasn’t his goddamn spot on the Basketball team that had been left hanging for half a week, Zero thought bitterly. He was about to fire off something again when his eyes travelled to the other end of the table, raking over the stranger sitting next to Kyle — who he was practically sure he had never seen around before. It was only when he met a pair of hazel eyes that his certainty vanished.

Hold on.

He knew that face.

He _knew_ that face, and those eyes. Worse, he just knew that subtle ‘I’m-much-better-than-you’ aura emanating from him. It was there, written in the way he cocked an eyebrow, look at him straight in the eye, even to sit at their table like he had always been there.

“Well, well. Isn’t that Kinkade?” Zero said, forcing his voice to sound casual.

Zero could’ve sworn Jude’s eyebrow twitched just a little.

“Wow, you finally got bigger after all,” Kinkade replied simply.

The audacity.

What the hell was he doing here? He had left like, a thousand years ago, for God knows where. His eyes snapped back to Raquel when she started talking, reminding him that there was an actual world around him.

“Jude got transferred here from boarding school,” she said.

Zero smirked triumphantly. “Lemme guess, they got tired of you and kicked you out?”

“Why, is that something you’re familiar with?” Kinkade fired back, casually opening his soda can.

There was a sudden silence around the table as everyone just stared at them. Zero, for his part, was looking right at Kinkade, hoping to look less dumbfounded than he felt. Okay, no. He wasn’t in the mood for this. No way. Not happening.

Zero glared, the bottle crumpling in his hand ever so slightly. “Okay, yeah, that was nice. Anyway, some of us happen to have stuff to do, so I’ll see you guys around,” he articulated coldly.

He spun around and offered his back to his friends calling him out, already striding towards the exit when Kyle’s voice echoed closer. He barely glanced behind his shoulder, and welcomed the cool breeze that hit his face as he walked out with relief.

“Ducky, wait,” she protested, catching up to him. “What the hell was that? Are you okay?”

“Couldn’t be better,” Zero retorted, and he huffed a groan of protest when she proceeded to drag him towards the football field instead.

“I thought your spot on the team was safe?” she pointed out as they dropped themselves onto the empty bleachers.

“It is.”

“Then what’s the matter with you?” Kyle insisted, crossing her legs carefully as she faced him.

Kyle hadn’t worn anything but skirts since that one freaking day in middle school when Derek, Terrence and he had the genius idea to piss her off by stating that she wasn’t ‘a real girl’, just because she had been hanging out with them ever since third grade. No amount of apologizing could convince her to go back to jeans, and it had made being her male best friend a real pain in the ass when other guys had suddenly started to _notice_ her.

He clenched his jaw and stared into the distance. “People are _talking_ , and I hate that.”

“Maybe you should have avoided turning the Homecoming dance into a boxing match then.”

“First of all, that’s freaking rude coming from the one person who said Abramson deserved it,” Zero snapped.

She shrugged, unapologetic, and it made her blond hair bounce on her shoulders. “He did deserve it. I don’t take it well whenever somebody disrespects my best friend.” Zero snorted. “I’m just saying that it’s probably the most exciting thing most people will see this year. Two hotties fighting over one girl during Homecoming? That’s gold.”

He groaned in response, burying his hands in his jean pockets. “She keeps calling…and texting.”

“Did you talk to her?” Kyle asked carefully.

He shook his head. He hadn’t actually talked to Sadie since the moment she told him she was getting something to drink during the Homecoming night. Five minutes later, realization had hit with the strength of a truck launched at full-speed when he had gathered that the ‘Trav’ that she had been so keen on texting last summer wasn’t actually one of her cousins, but Travis Abramson, one of those no-brainer footballers.

If only they had merely talked.

He wanted to throw up.

“Great,” Kyle said. “I think it’s for the best, actually.”

Zero glanced at her, annoyed.

“For the best?” he deadpanned.

It had never been a mystery that Kyle didn’t like most of the girls he had been dating (she hadn’t liked the ones who had dated Derek and Terrence much either though). But still, It wasn’t like he had been waiting for her approval or he’d have died a virgin before it happened.

“You’ve never liked Sadie,” he retorted.

“Of course not!” Kyle exclaimed. “Look, I don’t mean to tell you ‘I told you so’, but-”

“Don’t you dare,” Zero glared at her, and she shrugged, pouting. “I don’t want to talk to her, and I don’t want to talk _about_ her. Capiche?”

“Fine, fine,” she sighed, raising her hands in surrender.

There was a brief silence and Zero mentally started counting the seconds. She couldn’t keep quiet more than thirty seconds in a row anyway. He was reaching twenty-three when she suddenly turned her face to him and stopped staring at the grass.

“Have you seen Kinkade?” she asked, thoughtfully. “He got big too. I wonder what’s with you guys.”

Zero gave it a thought. Honestly, he had almost forgotten about that not-so-very-pleasant encounter with Jude ‘ever-so-perfect’ Kinkade. Just thinking about it made him frown. “Did you know he was coming back?”

“Nah. We found him this morning, all by himself. He looked totally lost,” Kyle said casually, tugging at her blond hair. “He’s cute, a real hottie now. I think Raquel’s definitely gonna call dibs on him.”

Zero cocked an eyebrow and huffed a laugh. “You’ve hung out way too much with us,” he stated, just as the faint echo of the bell rang for the next period, drowned by Kyle’s offended protests as they made their way back inside.

*

You’d think that being a 6’3” varsity basketball player was enough to deal with an ex-girlfriend, but apparently it was not, because Zero had found himself warily watching his surroundings between each period all morning, in order to avoid the familiar strawberry-blond head of Sadie every time he had to leave a classroom.

The only good thing, so far, was that their schedules hardly matched at all, which had been a real bother for the past month when they were still dating, but was now a sincere relief. Unless she decided to risk being late for her own classes, Zero knew for fact that Sadie was generally on the other side of the school pretty much all day long. That didn’t stop the judgmental looks he received from her various friends with whom he ended up sharing courses, but that he could deal with (he was very, _very_ good at glaring anyway).

Last period ended and he regretted once more that someone, a long time ago, had decided that Basketball was a winter sport. It meant that they wouldn’t start practice for another month at least. Sure, he could practice with Wall and Roman in the meantime, like they had done for _months_ now, but there was something profoundly boring about making shot after shot for two hours straight, every day.

Zero had to head to his coach’s office. He had been summoned, but he knew deep down it wasn’t to talk about the upcoming season.

“You wanted to see me?” Zero asked halfheartedly as he hovered close to his Coach, who was unlocking the door. “Don’t tell me Geyer pulled me off the team after all.”

The Coach gave him a look, the keys jingling against the door.

Jim Robertson was a man in his forties who had stopped being lean and athletic probably a decade ago. He had been his coach for the past three years, had known him since he was twelve, and when he was giving _that_ kind of look, Zero generally knew it wasn’t a good sign.

“No, _Principal_ Geyer did not,” the Coach corrected, then he opened the door and made him sign to get in.

Zero walked in but remained in the doorway, letting his backpack slide off his shoulder to the ground while Robertson rounded his desk. “Well, not yet, at least.”

Zero’s heart skipped a beat. Oh shit, he didn’t like that. He didn’t like that _at all_.

“Look, Zero,” the Coach said, opening the rolling doors of the cupboard behind him to flick through various files. “You’ve got to take care of your academics.”

There was a short pause and Zero stared, dumbfounded. “I’m sorry, what?”

The Coach looked over his shoulder at him. “The Abramsons wanted you _kicked off_ the Team. Thanks to your left hook, their kid is going to miss the rest of the football season. The fact that you were not, doesn’t mean you will never be. You should probably avoid giving them a good reason now.”

Zero pursed his lips. “I’m doing all I can,” he grumbled. He had never been a freaking genius but he was at least _okay_. Or at least he thought he was. Just enough to make it onto the team since his freshman year, which was more than enough to him.

“Well, let me tell you,” the Coach said, rapidly going through a file before putting it back, “it’s not going to be enough. Study more. Find a tutor. But don’t let your grades drop any more than that.”

“It’s only October!” Zero protested. “The year’s _barely_ started.”

“Find a tutor. Period,” Robertson said with a pointed stare.

_A tutor_. Like really.

Did he look like the kind of guy to do extra-homework? _Did he_? Okay maybe he would be forced to, because it wasn’t like there were a hundred ways out of the shit he had gotten himself into. But it wasn’t like he had a choice, Zero thought bitterly as he made his way out to the parking lot. It was certainly not like he was willing to risk his scholarship, nor the one he was determined to score for next year, for something as stupid as _his grades_. He’d rather die than end up at the gloomy neighborhood school he would have been forced to attend if Basketball hadn’t helped him out.

He was still sulking when he climbed in Terrence’s car and they headed directly to the Saldanas’, where the rest of the gang would join them. They had developed this habit of hanging out there the year before, when Jelena and Terrence had started dating. Raquel’s mother was a surgeon, her father a reporter, her sister was attending college and her house, located in a fancy neighborhood, was as big as it was empty of living souls.

“Drinks are in the fridge, snacks in the kitchen, bla bla bla,” Raquel said from her spot on the couch when they walked in. “Where’s Kyle?”

“She had to pick up her sister,” Zero shrugged as he dropped himself gloomily on the armchair.

Terrence sat next to Jelena while Derek came back from the kitchen and handed Zero a soda can.

“You didn’t bring Kinkade?” Derek snickered as he perched himself on the armrest of Zero’s seat.

Oh. So he wasn’t the only one who had noticed that she had been all over him all day long, apparently. Seriously, he spotted them together at one point and he had almost felt embarrassed to look at them.

Raquel shrugged. “Nah, he said he had other plans at home. Besides, Mom is supposed to come home early and I’d prefer to tell her about it before she stumbles onto him, herself.”

Zero frowned. “Why on Earth would she care? You’ve got all three of us,” he gestured to himself, Terrence and Derek, “in your living-room on a daily basis.”

“It’s not because he’s a guy, genius,” Raquel rolled her eyes. “It’s because of… you know, all that shit that happened when he left.”

There was silence and Zero was only satisfied by the fact that he wasn’t the only one who looked frankly puzzled. Raquel looked around as well. “You guys are joking right? You don’t _know_?”

Everybody groaned a ‘no’, except for Jelena who looked like she had already seen the end of the universe and couldn’t be less interested as she scrolled through her phone.

“Okay so... His mom and mine were friends. Then Jude’s mom died and that’s when the real shit began. His dad may or may not have something to do with it,” Raquel said, crossing her legs on the couch. Her voice was literally _trembling_ with the contained excitement of juicy gossip, and frankly, Zero was disgusted.

He had never been exactly Raquel’s favorite person (okay, he had forgotten _one date_ , and okay, _it was the first one,_ but she was the one who decided not to give him another chance, so it was her loss anyway), that was a fact. So, all in all, he had always expected Raquel to talk shit about him behind his back (like he cared, though). But hearing her gossiping like her life depended on it, after acting all ‘besties’ with him _five minutes after he got there_? Zero didn’t have a lot of principles but it sounded like this one should have been common sense.

Did he tell anyone to fuck off?

No, not really. Because it was either discussing Kinkade’s life like a Showtime movie or having everyone talk about Sadie and him. Did that make him a coward? Maybe… Whatever.

His mind drifted back to the conversation when Derek snorted. “You’re bullshitting.”

Raquel glared. “I’m not,” she retorted dryly. “You can check online if you don’t believe me. It was all over the news when it happened, how come you guys didn’t see it?”

“Parents’ shitty divorce,” Terrence shrugged.

“Didn’t know them,” Jelena said.

“Didn’t watch the news,” Derek added.

“Deadbeat legal guardians,” Zero raised his hand. “I didn’t know the Kinkades were that big of a deal,” he commented again into his soda-can.

“Really? Because Forbes magazine thinks pretty much the contrary,” Jelena said casually.

Zero frowned as she turned her phone for them to see. The network headline was flaunting, in capital letters, a list of the hundred wealthiest families in the country.

Terrence took his girlfriend’s phone and scrolled through the list before handing it back to her. “What is he even doing in a public school? I mean, I thought he was in a private school.”

Just at this moment, the front door closed and a slightly annoyed looking Kyle walked in, a duffle-bag thrown over her shoulder. “You guys don’t know what it’s like to have the most annoying baby sister in the world.”

Jelena looked up with a cocked eyebrow. “You like Taylor.”

“At this point I’m not sure she’s _still_ Taylor,” Kyle grumbled. “Maybe she’s been replaced by a goddamn human-eating alien. Here, I picked up your stuff,” she said, dropping the bag onto Zero’s lap as she rounded the armchair, before plopping down on the couch next to Raquel.

Zero gave her a nod as a thank you and discarded his stuff next to him on the hardwood floor. It wasn’t like he’d have been unable to survive a night without it, but he had packed some random stuff when he left for Kyle’s on Monday morning and at least his history book was in there. The Coach had told him to get better grades, it probably wasn’t the right moment to forget about doing his homework.

“What did I miss?” Kyle asked, looking around.

“Raq’s daily dose of gossip,” Derek shrugged. “Kinkade was on the menu.”

“ _Really_ ,” Kyle drawled, grinning broadly.

“Quit it, it was about his dead mom.”

“Oh. Nice. You guys know how to have fun,” she snickered. “How about we talk about something else?”

*

Raquel had not lied, her mom came back early, which prompted everyone to leave. It wasn’t that Mama Saldana wasn’t nice, but she remained a parent, and if Raquel indeed planned to give her a heads up on the Kinkade situation, they better be gone.

Zero wondered why the news about a guy he barely knew in the end bothered him so much. Part of him was feeling rather awkward at the thought of his first exchange with Kinkade, but it wasn’t _his fault_ if he happened to have a shitty past as well, nor was he supposed to know the extent of said shitty past.

Their relationship had been based on some sort of constant bickering. They had known each other in second grade, when Zero had moved in with his third foster family. Kinkade was already good at biting back. They weren’t in the same class, but recess was enough for them to find various and creative ways to jump at each other’s throats. _‘Next time you throw that ball at me, I’m gonna kick it out on the road,’_ he would yell, to what Zero would reply _‘Not my fault if you’re always in the way, you moron!’_

That’s how it had worked. Apparently the fact that they lived on opposite coasts for nearly ten years hadn’t caused them to tune it down, if the Cafeteria was any indication. Zero’s eyes glanced absent-mindedly around the familiar neighborhood, and he considered stopping by the district basketball court for a few seconds, as he hopped off the bus, before begrudgingly walking past it and making his way through the two more blocks separating him from 3174 Virginia Road. It was a one-story house that Zero hated to the core, from the cheap cigarette smell constantly floating over the living-room, to the bedroom he had to share with the most insufferable kid on Earth, and the kitchen from which nothing good ever came out.

He walked in, already riled up at the thought of simply being here. Despite being a foster kid himself, Zero had little to no idea how other kids in his situation lived, if it was any better somewhere else or not. Deep down he was sure it wasn’t, and that’s probably why he had been there for almost ten years. That and, according to nasty rumors, the fact that nobody was willing to take him back — if anybody was still there to do so at all. _We aren’t family. Okay?_ _Nobody’s here because they want to be._ That’s what Joey (a girl who had lived with the Delucas when he had first arrived) said to him in lieu of a greeting, before pointing back to the couple. She was slightly older, maybe ten at the time. _Trust me, they don’t want it either. Nobody does. Suck it up_.

Joey had left the house about two years after that and had gone back to live with her alcoholic mother. Ever since, Zero had been the oldest, aside from those four months where a sixteen-year-old boy called Carter had come around when Zero was fourteen. When the Delucas moved from a somewhat more comfortable-looking house to a much cheaper one, six or seven years ago, the number of kids narrowed down to four. Zero had stayed put, watching other kids come and go ever since.

Zero walked in, not bothering to kick off his shoes in the entrance before he bee-lined through the kitchen to the bedroom. Most people would have referred to it as ‘his bedroom’, but if anything, he wasn’t that optimistic –hence why he wasn’t surprised to find the thirteen-year-old boy, with whom he was forced to share the room, sprawled over his own bed listening to music.

Zero dropped his backpack at the foot of the second bed and his duffle-bag on the mattress. His eyes darted onto the bedside table separating the two beds. There was a binder, with wrinkled papers emerging from it and probably represented Thiago’s backpack and general lack of care; on top of the binder, a phone charger, Axe spray, and various things he didn’t really take the time to examine before he grabbed the whole lot and threw it out the wide open bedroom door. The kid let out an offended screech of protest, dropping both his stupid hood and his earbuds in a single move as he got up.

“Fuckin’ asshole!” he blurted out, standing on his two feet. Zero wasn’t remotely fazed — the kid wasn’t any taller than his collarbones —, and Thiago seemed to realize it too because he backed away with gritted teeth.

“My side,” Zero uttered coldly.

He turned his back to the kid and opened the zipper of his duffle-bag in one swift move.

“Next time you leave, I fucking swear I’ll throw your stuff out,” Thiago raged.

“Have fun trying.”

Zero emptied the bag of the various wrinkled clothes he had worn for the past three days while at Kyle’s, grabbed them and strode out of the room as Thiago was dropping his own stuff on his mattress.

Zero went to the bathroom across the hall to get some laundry done.

“I hope he beats the fucking shit out of you when he gets back,” Thiago spat from the bedroom.


	3. Jude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the feedbacks 💕 i'll try to update every five days or so.

The next couple of days were better… and worse, all at the same time.

Better, because nothing could beat the nervousness of his first day at school. Worse, because he had, amongst other things, spent his first weekend at home in ages and he wasn’t particularly thrilled to have that experience repeat itself for the next three months.

His parents’ mansion was a particularly weird mix of deserted and crowded, welcoming and gloomy, spacious and suffocating. His parents were never really home, with Oscar, forever away on business, and Lionel busy with her hundreds of various activities that constantly kept her out and about. Yet the house was buzzing with activity, a staff of at least twenty (most of whom Jude barely even knew and some not at all) at any given time, keeping the household clean and running smoothly. The house always felt warm and cozy, flooded with light, spotless and ready to be featured in _Harper’s Bazaar._ But the memories it held of Jude’s troubled childhood were anything but. This was no sanctuary for Jude. 20,000 square feet and yet the only privacy he could get, away from his parents, staff, or even security cameras, was only in his own bedroom.

Life was still a little bit surreal at times. He was still nodding vaguely to the house’s personnel he recognized every once in a while, and he was constantly mixing up Lionel’s personal assistant, Abigail, with Amanda, the landscape architect — which wasn’t nearly as harmless a mistake as he had thought in the beginning, judging by Abigail’s penchant for glaring. He kept forgetting his teachers’ names, turning to people who weren't there to share a joke, and wondering who the hell were those people everybody kept gossiping so eagerly about. On the second day, he contemplated sending a text to Cem, his former roommate, to enquire about the follow-up at Ellis Harwood, but quickly dropped the idea. The following weekend, he faced the fact that if he hadn’t received a single notification from the group chat he shared with his former swim team; he simply wasn’t one of them anymore, he didn’t belong. 

Fortunately, he wasn’t completely alone. He could say he had officially befriended Jelena and Raquel (or at least Jelena had deemed it so). He still had to get used to the rest of the gang though. Terrence was nice, but Jude assumed he was biased based solely on the fact that he was Jelena’s boyfriend. As for Derek, he seemed a decent guy once you managed to get past his ever-judgmental expression.

That left Kyle and Zero.

Kyle was brutally honest and straight-forward, and Jude had realized pretty quickly that she wasn’t someone he wanted to have prying into his business, whatever that business may be. And Zero… Well, to be fair, Zero was almost never there, although conversations within the gang sometimes turned out to be about him. Jude couldn’t care less. Okay, yeah, he definitely _could_ , but it was only because Zero had that whole… _asshole_ attitude directed right the fuck at him since they met in the Cafeteria. As if he had said something truly offensive, while it was at worst extremely dumb — he hadn’t expected that tiny, scrawny, annoying kid from second grade to become a monster of a baller, all ripped and muscular like that, _alright_?

Kyle, of all people, seemed to act differently whenever he was around, and Jude had come to the conclusion that those two had some kind of weird chemistry. He didn’t know what their deal was, but he wasn’t particularly keen to find out.

What about school?

He was already bored by his AP Calculus and really didn’t care about his AP Biology course. He wasn’t great in literature but he wondered for a while what it’d be like to attend a class where he wouldn’t be three steps ahead of the teacher before he even finished writing the equations on the board.

In a word? _Boring_.

That was, until Thursday. He had barely even stepped inside the school when a short girl hovered in his personal space by the lockers. She was ironically wearing a NASA shirt, obviously more of a fashion statement than an actual interest in aerospace engineering, because her very first words were: “Hi there. I’m Emmy. Like the Emmy Awards.”

Honest to God he thought it was a joke at first. But it wasn’t, and his lack of a response didn’t seem to faze her. “I was wondering if maybe you had heard about a party at my place? It’s on Saturday night.”

“I’ve got other plans,” Jude replied instinctively.

He very much _didn’t,_ right now his social life was as exciting as a suicide letter, but this wasn’t what would make it relevant all of a sudden.

“But it’s on Saturday night,” Emmy pointed out with a chuckle. “Parent free. You could meet a lot of new people there!” And without even taking a breath, she added, her face lighting up: “Is it true that you know the Kardashians?”

He stared at her blankly. “My stepmom does.” _And despises them more than you could imagine_.

“That’s awesome, oh my god,” she squealed excitedly. “So you’ll come?”

“He’s got other plans, and so do most seniors next Saturday,” a profoundly annoyed voice intervened.

Jude’s head snapped to see Jelena standing beside him. She didn’t look like she had just barged into a conversation that she had no business being in, in the first place. Emmy’s eyes darted to her too, her mouth hanging open a little.

“The party at Xander’s is on Friday night,” Emmy objected.

“It’s been moved to Saturday,” Jelena said without a blink.

There was a short, one-second awkward silence, then Emmy simply shrugged. “Another time maybe?” and with a wave she twirled around and walked away, almost throwing her long hair in Jude’s face in the process.

He groaned to himself, then caught Jelena’s pointed stare. “What?”

She shrugged. “Nothing, just wondering if you’re trying to break a record or something.”

“What record?” he asked, now mildly annoyed.

“I don’t know,” she scoffed, “maybe the number of girls you turned down in a week?”

He snorted. “She’s the only one.”

Jelena let out a small “uh huh”, as if she was giving it a real thought. “Interesting,” she said casually. “You should definitely get yourself a better ‘thanks but no’ answer for the next ones, then.”

And with that she left, heading back towards the entrance of the building. He frowned, confused, and quickly strode behind her. “What next ones?!”

*

“Look at us, sharing breakfast. Isn’t it great?” Lionel said enthusiastically into her cup of coffee.

Not knowing Lionel, anybody would have probably expected it to be some sort of fake-joy, but her stepson knew better. Jude had been suspecting for a while that her over-eagerness when it came to him probably had to do with the fact that after nearly eight years of marriage with his dad, there hadn’t been another little Kinkade strolling through the house while he was away — he had never known if it was on purpose or not, nor had he found the time or the energy to ask.

Jude hummed unconvincingly at his plate of pancakes. It wasn’t like he didn’t find it _great_ , but it wasn’t like he had many other family breakfasts to compare. As always, his stepmom was going over the top, and the grand mahogany table was disappearing under, like, a _hundred_ different plates. He highly doubted that even if his dad was looking up from his phone long enough to finish his second cup of coffee any of them would return empty to the kitchen.

“Sure,” his dad replied, probably firing off his fifteenth text since they had all sat down around the table.

There was a short silence, only disturbed by the sound of Jude’s fork tinkling on his plate.

“Jude, honey, do you have any plans for this weekend?” Lionel asked casually.

He shouldn’t have told her he had met nice enough people, especially when he was still _very_ committed to making his dad understand that pulling him out of Ellis Harwood hadn’t been okay _,_ thank you very much. That would have, of course, required his dad to even pay attention to the outside world though.

“I don’t know,” Jude replied slowly after swallowing his bite of pancake. “There might be some sort of party tonight.”

He expected his stepmom to talk him out of going — his Centurion card was still confiscated from the time they had found out that his friend, Marcus’, seventeenth birthday party didn’t have a Greek theme but had been organized on a Greek island. But instead of frowning, Lionel smiled, her face lighting up. “That’s wonderful! You should go. Take advantage of some real high school experience.”

“I was in a _real_ high school,” Jude countered, offended. “One I didn’t have to take the _bus_ to.”

Lionel waved dismissively. “You’re being dramatic, nobody has been talking about taking the bus. I told you that Eric could drive you there.”

“I’m attending a _public school._ It’s not really the norm to have a chauffeur.”

“Jude doesn’t need a chauffeur, he needs a car,” his dad intervened, finally putting his phone on the table. “I got a call yesterday, it should be delivered on Monday.”

Jude almost dropped his fork in surprise. “A car?” he repeated, confused.

His dad arched an eyebrow, as if he had asked a very stupid question, but as far as Jude was concerned, he had never heard of any plans regarding a car whatsoever. He had his driver’s license, and his dad had signed for a few rentals during vacations so he could wander around a bit. But it wasn’t like an actual car had been any use to him up until now, with him on one Coast and any hypothetical car of his on the other one.

Lionel seemed a little taken aback as well. “A car? What car?”

His dad discarded his napkin on the table as he stood up, smoothing his tie. “One that I hope he will have the decency to care for,” then he looked at Jude from across the table, with his ever so slightly annoyed expression, as he put his suit jacket on. “I had expected a better reaction, for an $87,000 welcome gift.”

“Er, thank you?” Jude tried awkwardly, still clutching his fork a little too tightly. His dad grabbed his phone with a snort and left the room without so much as a look back. “Should I thank you too?” Jude asked carefully as he glanced at Lionel.

She gave him a pointed look. “Listen to me, young man,” she said, openly ignoring his question, “you’re going to this party. I will not have you moping around this house till Christmas.”

*

 _I hate this_ , Jude thought bitterly as he progressed through the crowded hall, full of teens his age who were far less bothered than he was about tripping over somebody else, apparently. _I hate this so freaking much_.

He barely resisted the temptation to shove away the couple who had just bumped into him, too busy making out to notice there was a freaking outside world. The beer was warm and slightly gross, he hadn’t found a single one of the few people he had met so far who were _supposed_ to be here, and he had already fought with Lionel over the matter of his curfew… _not_ to come home two hours _earlier_ than planned.

“If you want extra hours of freedom, you take Ludovico with you,” she had shrugged casually when he had protested against being expected home by half past midnight.

“I’m _not_ taking Ludovico with me,” he had scoffed, mildly horrified at the thought of having to walk around with a goddamn bodyguard. Jeez, his dad was an estate mogul, not a member of a Cartel or the _President_.

“Then I think we are done here,” Lionel had said sweetly.

Now he was regretting even being talked into coming here in the first place. He wasn’t one of those nerds who had no social life. His was actually just fine, on the _East_ _Coast_ , where he knew people. People who knew the basic rule of not serving freaking _warm_ _beer._

He didn’t even know who this “Xander” guy was, who lived in this stupid house. He followed a group of giggling girls into what he assumed was the living room. If he didn’t find anybody he knew, then he’d just leave, and to hell with his-

A hand wrapped around his wrist and made him spin around. “Hey, you came!” Kyle grinned, and Jude wondered how the hell he could have missed her with her shiny silver bomber jacket.

“Thought you guys had a change of plans.”

Kyle raised her red cup. “Kinkade, you’ll figure out that I’m _always_ up for free drinks. C’mon!”

She dragged him through the living room and headed directly through the French doors opening to the backyard. A group of loud people were playing beer pong on the deck, while others were sitting on a blanket laid out on the grass around an improvised table made from a pile of empty pizza boxes.

Okay nobody could make fun of him for not thinking to check _outside_ right away. In _his_ world, October tended to be chilly and windy, with temperatures around 50°F, _not 70°F_.

“Look who I found once again,” Kyle exclaimed, walking directly to the second group.

Now he recognized a few faces… Raquel, at least. Kyle plopped down next to a guy with messy dark hair whom Jude was sure he had seen in a couple of his classes, and when Raquel gave a nudge to a ginger girl sitting next to her, he vaguely remembered her from his English class.

“Have a seat,” Raquel grinned, patting at the small spot on the blanket.

The girl next to her looked at him. “Seven minutes in heaven, wanna play?”

Jude glanced at the girls, who seemed like they were having too much of a good time to move onto another game — like drinking themselves silly, which would have been an activity _he could get behind_. “Yeah, why not,” he shrugged.

What were the odds that he’d be picked anyway? There were eight people around the makeshift table, statistics were on his side.

“You sure?” Raquel asked. “You do know that the rule implies that the last one to join is automatically part of the next round, right?”

Uh-uh, _no_. He didn’t remember that. But given that the only few times he had played he was practically a citizen in Tequila City, it wasn’t hard to see _why_.

“Er, yeah, yeah, ‘course,” he muttered, awkwardly standing there and seemingly unable to move. Is this something he really wanted to participate in? Should he risk kissing a stranger just to fit in with the group? What was he supposed to do? Sit down to spin the bottle himself, or stay standing because he’d have to get up for his turn anyway? Of course he realized he couldn’t just leave, he’d risk being labeled as the biggest pussy ever.

The guy next to Kyle groaned with impatience and spun the bottle for him. “There.”

Ok… fine. A kiss wouldn’t kill him.

He definitely had kissed girls before. Two, in fact — because he had been dared to do so, but that was beside the point. This time wouldn’t be any different. The empty bottle started to slow down on the pile of empty pizza boxes, settling on Raquel.

He didn’t know if it was for better or for worse. Maybe for the better. Yeah, for the better. At least it wasn’t a guy. Some heterosexual dumbass who would scoff and try to wriggle his way out of it because really, who could ask him to kiss _a boy_ , that was gross, _right_? He could suddenly remember parties of card kissing back at Ellis Harwood — no lips touching, and that was already far more than most could take.

Raquel stood up and he held his hand out to help her steady herself. “The shed,” she said as he quirked a brow and looked vaguely around.

“Ah, ok… yeah.”

They made their way to the small garden shed standing by the fence in the backyard, closing the door behind them. It only muffled the sounds of the party outside, and if he was listening carefully, he could probably make out the conversations and giggles from the group they had just left. He tried not to.

There was an awkward silence between them as he shoved his hands in his pockets, and Raquel’s high heels echoed against the wooden floor as she slowly took a couple of steps towards him.

She cleared her throat just as he was about to suggest they should get down to business, if only to get it out of the way. “So, uhm. Any chance you might be interested in someone?”

Jude looked at her, slightly taken aback. “Not- uh. Not really,” he admitted. “This is all a bit… it’s a bit _new_.”

“Makes sense,” she conceded. There was another pause. Outside someone burst out in laughter, and they exchanged a small wince as the sound turned into a cackle. “Look, if you don’t want to, it’s fine, really. We aren’t forced to do this, we can just talk.”

Jude considered her, pondering his answer. “You sure?” he asked carefully.

She grinned. “Yeah, sure. Totally fine.”

He let out a small breath he didn’t know he had been holding in when she perched herself on a pile of plastic chairs, putting a little more distance between them.

“So, what’s up in your life?”

He stared down at the ground a little, and shrugged. “My dad got remarried. That’s about the most thrilling thing that happened to me.”

This was a lie.

Smooth and believable, but still a lie nonetheless. He wasn’t so bad at switching between truth and made-up truth whenever it was called for, but the fact that Raquel was giving him a way out of this slightly awkward situation made it hard to look her right in the eye while doing so.

The most thrilling part of the last decade was not Lionel, although Jude couldn’t deny that she had brought a certain _sparkle_ to his life — no, the most thrilling part was a six-foot-something Lacrosse Team Captain named Connor. Connor Studwick, the heir to the Studwick Hotels all across the world. The guy with a worldwide pedigree, great abs, and a snarkiness that Jude had at first mistaken for pure pettiness, but had turned out to be his classmate’s favorite coping mechanism whenever he was pining for someone — and he would be damned if he said he hadn’t found it hot.

Connor was the most exciting thing that had happened to him.

And that’s exactly what had been the problem since the beginning.

Because all the time they spent fooling around, heavily making out in locker rooms, sneaking out after sunset to wander lazily among the pine trees, _all along_ Jude had forgotten that Connor was very obviously never going to come out. He had never planned for Jude to be more than a distraction, the embodiment of something delicious and forbidden. Jude had been fine with it… _for a time_. Except that after Jude had turned seventeen, and with a whole summer to reflect on it, he had started to wonder what it’d be like to actually date someone. He liked how it was with Connor, but he wanted more than a few rushed blowjobs behind the science building. He shouldn’t have built castles in the sky, but it wasn’t like he could have helped it.

Then everything had crashed. When the news of their Principal’s involvement in an embezzlement scandal started to spread, the Studwicks had been among the first to pull Connor out. Too fast for them to even discuss what would happen after that.

Jude felt his throat tighten a little and as if the walls of the shed were quickly closing in on him. “I’m still thinking about someone from boarding school,” he admitted quietly, not looking at her.

There was another long pause between them, as the news probably made its way through her brain and she put it together with other various pieces of information he had given her so far.

“So you’re… you’re into boys then?” she asked after a moment.

“Yeah, seems so,” he said with a small, uncertain smile, finally looking back at her.

Her dark-brown eyes were pitch-black in the darkness of the shed and he waited for a rejection of some sort as she kept staring blankly at him, her expression unreadable while she tugged at her choker. It was the first time he was admitting it out loud. Not that he had trouble admitting it to himself, it’s just that up until now it had never come into question openly. He had been tempted to tell his former roommate, Cem, but by the time he had gotten the nerves to do so the moment had passed and the conversation had drifted on to something far less personal — it’d have been just weird.

Connor had never exactly _needed_ for him to actually say it. And the rest of his friends were probably as straight as it was possible to be.

Raquel tilted her head to the side. “Do you want to keep it secret?”

“I don’t know,” Jude huffed. “Whatever happens I just don’t want it to be a big deal, you know?”

She nodded thoughtfully. “They won’t leave you alone until they get you to kiss someone. This thing,” she said, pointing around at the shed, “is just the first part of the game. They just like to mess with the new kids.”

Jude groaned and kicked at the ground with his foot. She chuckled and he glared at her instinctively.

“Relax,” she said as she hopped off the pile of chairs, “I’ve got an idea.”

He stood still as she walked into his personal space and took his chin. He wondered for a second if she hadn’t decided all of a sudden to forget that they had both agreed on _not kissing_ and that he had literally come out to her as gay five seconds ago, until she ran her thumb on her purple-coated lips a couple of times. She then proceeded to do the same onto his mouth, spreading evident traces of lipstick. The concentrated frown on her face turned into a broad grin as she took a step back to admire her work.

“And now you look like someone who just made out with a hot girl,” she decided, sounding rather proud.

Jude let out a laugh as she then proceeded to add the final touch by messing up his hair a little bit. “Thanks, that’s nice.”

“You’re welcome,” she shrugged, waving with her hand just as someone knocked at the door.

“Are you guys decent?” a voice giggled outside.

“Isa you’re the slut in here, not me,” Raquel yelled back, running a hand through her hair.

“Rude,” the girl muttered outside as Raquel grabbed Jude’s hand and dragged him out of the shed.

The music seemed to have gotten louder inside of the house and new faces had appeared in the group they had left seven minutes ago. A concert of giggles and whistles welcomed the slightly debauched look Raquel had created from scratch for them.

“I gotta go to the bathroom,” Jude said, not very keen on going back for another round.

“I’ll save a seat for you if you decide to come back,” Raquel said, pulling a face, before she sauntered back to her own spot.

Jude hopped onto the deck and got back inside the house. He remembered walking past a passably busy bathroom on the first floor when he was still trying to find someone he knew, and it took him only a minute or two to reach it. Just as he was about to pull the door handle, the door swung open and Jude found himself face to face with Zero.

The baller stared at him for a second. “You got lipstick all over,” he commented dryly with a disgusted scrunch of his nose, before walking past him.


	4. Zero

“You look like trash for someone who doesn’t drink,” Kyle groaned, squinting hard.

“Good morning to you too,” Zero replied sarcastically as he strolled into the small kitchen, before sitting down at the table, his back against the wall.

Kyle’s hair was sticking up in every possible direction and he could already tell that she’d go back to sleep as soon as he’d leave. Her resistance to alcohol wasn’t very on point, but she kept claiming it was because her body would “react differently” depending on the day.

“Pancakes?”

He shrugged and accepted the plate that she was holding in his direction, then she sat down next to him after grabbing two cups of hot chocolate and a second plate for her. A regular Sunday morning, mostly. Kyle’s mom was generally working on weekends ever since her daughters were old enough to stay home on their own. The fact that their house was on Zero’s way to his part-time job prompted him to swing by most weeks to hang out with Kyle, before taking his shift at the mechanic shop located down the street.

“So, what’s with the long face?” Kyle asked, quirking a brow.

“’Didn’t sleep very well,” he muttered, bleary eyes fixated on his plate.

Joke was on him because he had actually left the party reasonably early _precisely_ to avoid being tired as hell the next morning. Thing was, he had spent most of the night before replaying the conversation he had back at Xander’s with Sadie. Yes, after exactly two weeks of refusing to talk to her or even to _see_ her, Zero had let himself be cornered by his not-very-ex-girlfriend the night before — he was too busy trying to smash Abramson’s head in during Homecoming to say the three magic words (WE-ARE-OVER). Surely it had given Sadie hope that there was still something to fix between them, and now Zero didn’t know what to think anymore.

Kyle hummed in response around a mouthful of pancake.

“You talked with Sadie last night,” she observed, nonchalantly adding some maple syrup on her breakfast, as if she had been able to follow his train of thought.

If he didn’t know her so well, it _could_ have sounded like she didn’t really care. What a mistake that would have been. “We were just talking.”

“I should have dragged you away,” she added grumpily. “What did she say?”

Zero pursed his lips a little, staring at his pancakes. He was trying to decipher if being honest was the best call or not when it came to his best friend, especially whenever Sadie was involved. “She said she was sorry,” he said vaguely. “That… er, that she felt lonely because I was always busy.”

“So that excuses cheating?” Kyle scoffed. “What is she, some bored housewife?”

“Maybe not, but it’s true that I didn’t see her a lot last summer,” Zero admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

Between his job and those weeks of basketball summer camp, plus the moments he had to work out, those three months had been pretty busy, and looking back, maybe he should have tried more. But he was often annoyed by her sending him ten texts in a row, or whenever she’d be mad at him because he wasn’t answering fast enough, so sometimes it’s true he had delayed answering on purpose.

Kyle groaned and bitterly turned a pancake to shreds on her plate. “You know what’s wrong with this? You don’t give a damn about the girl on your arm as long as there’s someone. It could be _literally_ anyone.”

He glared at her. “Bullshit.”

“Oh really?” Kyle drawled. “How long have you been single since you started dating?”

“That’s beside the point,” Zero countered. “Sadie and I, we get along well.”

“Sure, when she’s not cheating,” Kyle huffed.

Zero dropped his fork in his plate, fuming. “Hart, I fucking swear to God-”

“Okay, fine!” she exclaimed.

Zero glared at her nonetheless.

She didn’t know Sadie the way he knew her.

They had been flirting a bit around the Christmas of their junior year, a few weeks after he had ended things with Ginny Goodyear, about a month into their relationship. They had started texting every now and then during Winter Break, before running into each other while on a morning run later in January. She was hoping to score a scholarship as a varsity member of the Volleyball team, so they had naturally taken to the habit of working out together. Sure, she could be annoying, possessive, and sometimes, frankly, bitchy. Her parents constantly put her on a pedestal regardless of her behavior, and she wouldn’t give a damn that they were literally right next door before going down on him.

But she wasn’t just staring at him with stars in her goddamn eyes. They looked good together according to most (which meant everyone but Kyle), and they had fallen into some kind of comfortable routine together.

Yeah okay, she was also hot. It helped.

Kyle took a deep breath and put her fork down. “I’m worried for you, you big dummy. Cheating isn’t okay. You could have anyone you want, why would you settle for somebody who has hurt you on purpose?” Zero obstinately kept his eyes on the table. “Plus, you can say whatever you want about her, but I’ve never seen someone nearly as self-centered as she is.”

“Really?” Zero eventually asked, unimpressed. “And how would you know that, since you always passed on spending time with me whenever she was around?”

“I didn’t _always_ pass on that,” Kyle retorted.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Kyle sighed and played with her cup of hot chocolate. “I know she never bothered to fight you on not bringing her to your place.”

“Neither did Ginny, or Britt, or any of the others,” Zero replied bluntly. “There’s no reason to pick a fight when I make it plain it’s off the table. That’s called being _sensitive_.”

Kyle huffed. “You deserve someone who cares enough to pick a fight.”

“And I think,” Zero snapped, “that I deserve someone who respects something called _boundaries_.”

Kyle grinned at him insolently. “Then I think we both agree on the fact that Sadie is out.”

Zero stared at her, then he rolled his eyes with a loud sigh.

Why was he even _trying_?

*

“Does that mean that Kinkade is officially off the market?”

Surprisingly enough, the question emanated from Terrence, as they were making their way down the hallway the following morning. Sunday had come and gone uneventfully for everyone, and the better part of Zero’s afternoon had been spent occasionally hitting the gas pedal of a Range Rover whenever his boss needed him to.

Kyle waved. “I think it was more like a game.” She then looked at Zero. “Not everyone loses their V-card during a 7MH session.”

“Bold of you to assume I was a virgin,” Zero fired back.

Okay, he was, but that was beside the point. And it didn’t change the fact that he lost his virginity much sooner than Roman or Wall. Yes, he was taking pride in those things. Like the day he had finally reached Terrence’s size, _AND_ had outgrown Derek. _That_ had been a thrill.

“Bold of you to assume _he_ is a virgin,” Derek deadpanned. “He probably lost it with a model on a yacht or some crazy shit like that.”

“Dude, we’ve got to find you someone,” Kyle decreed all of a sudden.

“You got to do _nothing at all_ ,” Derek retorted sharply.

They headed out to their lockers but Zero had lost interest in the conversation the moment she decided that they couldn’t have Derek be single by the time Zero “breaks another heart” — like what, they had forgotten he was the one who had been _cheated on_? Zero froze briefly. _Think of the devil._ Sadie was hanging by her locker on the other side of the large double-doors, looking at him from over her friend’s shoulder. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt, the hem falling down mid-thigh on her skinny-jeans.

“Are you kidding me right now?”

Zero startled and glanced at Kyle, who had followed his gaze.

“That one is yours,” she said matter-of-factly as she pointed right to Sadie, or rather her sweatshirt, without even a single care for discretion.

Zero huffed. “Nah it’s not.”

“Sure, she has the habit of wearing stuff that fits her so well that she’s got to roll the sleeves _three times_ to have her hands free,” Derek said, unhelpful to the last degree.

Zero shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head. “You guys are the fucking worst,” he grumbled, striding to get inside the building.

“She’s trying to get you back with a goddamn sweatshirt,” Kyle sneered, following him inside. “How can you just let her do that?”

“She’s got a point, dude,” Terrence intervened. “Just ask for your stuff back. It’s not like you two are on a break or something, you split up.”

Zero didn’t answer right away, which left enough time for Kyle to voice her disagreement through an incomprehensible mumble and the guys to eye him with disapproval. “I didn’t break-up with her... yet,” he admitted half-heartedly.

“Okay, Zero, bro, hear me out,” Terrence started, automatically falling back into the default big-bro mode that always made Zero roll his eyes. “She’s a cheater. Alright? She cheated. That’s it. Don’t get hung up on her.”

“Says the guy who had Kyle practically break-up with his ex _for him_ ,” Zero deadpanned. “I don’t need advice, okay? I just need for everyone to mind their own business,” he mumbled as he took the stairs to the left.

*

Zero stared at his phone, profoundly annoyed. It wasn’t in his nature to be late, at least not consciously. It wasn’t in his nature to be early either. Generally, his timing was always on point to never be the first one or the last one to show up. It was _perfect_.

So why, _why_ was that starting to change?

He was waiting on his fucking own at the same table they had used for the past _three years,_ a slice of pizza growing cold in front of him as his appetite seemed to be absent as well. Where the hell was everyone?

“Where’s everyone?” a voice echoed.

Zero’s head snapped up from his phone, only to find Kinkade staring at him with his food tray nonchalantly tucked between his hip and his arm.

“ _I_ should ask you, you’re the one sharing classes with them, not me,” Zero groaned.

Okay, he was still pissed about this. How do you explain that _he was the only one_ who hadn’t been sharing more than _one_ class with any of his friends since their sophomore year, and Kinkade suddenly shared a whole bunch of them?

Who was he supposed to fight for this?

Kinkade shrugged, setting his tray on the table. “Jelena’s with her coach. Guess the others are just held up.”

And with that he sat down, like it was no big deal. It’s only been a week and Mr. Kinkade was parading around like he had been there for fucking ever. Couldn’t he at least have the decency to look hesitant? _Slightly confused_? _No_ , everything was perfectly fine for Mr. Fucking Perfect. God Zero wanted to smash something. Screw the shitty family history. Kinkade had more than enough good shit to compensate. You didn’t just look like a goddamn Disney Prince, with the bank account of one of those dummies featured in the Rich Kids of Beverly Hills, and just _expect_ people to like you.

People couldn’t like him. That couldn’t be a _thing_.

And yet everyone around him seemed to. _The_ _betrayal_.

Terrence and Derek liked his occasional comebacks. Jelena, the resident cold-hearted know-it-all, was sharing _notes_ with him. Even Kyle was going on and on about how _nice_ he was. And Raquel. _Raquel_. She literally didn’t even wait _a week_ before throwing herself at him. Gross… and _rude_. So what, he missed one date and he was black-listed forever, but Mr. Kinkade just disappeared from the fucking surface of the Earth for ten years without so much as a call every now and then, and it was _okay?_

And now even Mr. Kinkade was ignoring him. _Literally_. He was scrolling on his phone like the outside world didn’t exist, especially not someone sitting opposite him, someone living and _breathing._ Zero stared at him blatantly for a moment, following his small gestures as he typed a text.

“So you’re an item or something?” Zero eventually asked, perhaps harshly but _oh well_ , if Golden Boy couldn’t take it they weren’t made to live on the same goddamn planet.

Kinkade looked up from his phone, and honest to God he looked confused and slightly taken aback. _That_ was a normal reaction, a human one. So he wasn’t an alien after all. “What?”

“Raquel,” Zero snapped back, rolling his eyes. “Lipstick, Xander’s? Ring any bells?”

Kinkade hummed in response and locked his phone before putting it back on the table, screen down. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. We aren’t,” he said with a casual shrug, face perfectly collected all over again.

Zero scoffed. “It is my business because she’s a friend of mine.”

He didn’t really know where that came from though, at best Raquel was a friend of a friend, but to say that she was a friend of _his_ was a little bit much. He shrugged to himself. Whatever.

“So that gives you the right to be nosey?” Kinkade deadpanned.

“I just like to know where everybody stands,” Zero retorted, folding his arms over his chest.

Kinkade glared daggers at him. “Oh, so that’s why you’ve been an ass to me since the beginning? Don’t worry, I’m not aiming to challenge your serial fucker title any time soon.”

“You’re the one who acted like an ass at the beginning!” Zero blurted, now honestly pissed.

Kinkade’s eyebrows shot up. “How so?” he scoffed. “I said, like, _three words_ before you literally walked out, probably to go punch someone because, you know, apparently that’s a thing you do?” Zero opened his mouth and closed it, which took probably the exact three seconds that the asshole allowed him to use before he started speaking again, shaking his head: “If you wanna hate me, fine, I don’t care. Just don’t say it was because of me, because whatever I said that got you all pissy, I didn’t mean it that way.”

Zero stared at him, with a mix of anger and suspicion. He couldn’t quite decipher what he was supposed to say to _that_. Kinkade couldn’t be _nice_ on top of everything else. He just couldn’t _be_. “Are you seriously _apologizing_ right now?”

“You know what? Just take it however you want,” Kinkade huffed with another shake of his head.

Zero felt downright bad, which was new for him, actually. Not that he didn’t care about other people’s feelings in general, but people were just so _prone_ to get offended over even the slightest comeback that he was too tired to give a damn the majority of the time. He glanced at his cold pizza, no hungrier than he was before Kinkade even showed up.

“I’m in the middle of a rough patch,” Zero mumbled, not looking up. “Usually somebody calls me out on my shit, so I guess that makes you, like, part of the group now…or something.”

There was a second of silence at the table, and Kinkade snorted. “I’m flattered, really.”

Zero rubbed the back of his neck. _Awkward_. It was as if he had forgotten how normal conversations with people were supposed to work. He didn’t talk to a lot of people outside of his friends, save for the usual ‘not interested’ that he kept uttering every now and then to desperate-looking freshman girls.

Seconds, then minutes, dragged on without either of them talking, and when Zero spotted Kyle’s blonde head and Derek’s slender outline towering next to her at the end of lunch line on the other side of the cafeteria, he felt a little bit relieved. The rest of the Gang flooded the table not long after that, each of them bickering over various disagreements which had caused them to be so late in the first place. He wasn’t forced to make eye-contact with Kinkade, given that he had slid a spot away to the right and wasn’t sitting right in front of him anymore. Honestly? It was better that way.

*

“I need your help,” Zero said, easily catching up with Jelena as soon as she exited her last class.

She looked up at him, slightly confused. “For what?” she asked, pursing her full lips. “If it’s about Sadie, I’m out.”

Zero sneered. Damn it, his life didn’t revolve around _Sadie fucking Sinclair_. But maybe he could use some help in that department too, though — not that it was anybody’s business. No, right now, he had a much, much bigger problem to solve, which he was reminded of when he had spotted his Coach talking with another teacher in the hallway. Robertson had hit him up for updates on the matter of his tutor _three times_ already, and the last time Zero replied that he had found one and everything was under control.

Which, of course, was _not_.

And now he was screwed.

“It’s not about Sadie,” Zero retorted. “I need help with my grades. I’ve had Geyer on my back since Homecoming and if I don’t find a way to improve them, he could pull me out of the Team.”

Jelena’s pace faltered and the frown on her face deepened. “Why would he do that? If they take you out, the team loses. That’s it.”

That was the easy thing with Jelena. She was a smart cookie, but a smart cookie who didn’t like losing. For all he cared, her feelings for Terrence had seemed genuine since the beginning, but it didn’t mean she was pleased by the prospect of dating the Captain of a losing Basketball Team. Zero kind of counted on that to get her to help save his fucking ass.

“Well, duh, thank you, I didn’t know that,” Zero sarcastically replied. “C’mon, Jel, I _need_ your help.”

“I can’t, I’ve got the squad already. That’s plenty of work as it is, I don’t have any free-time left,” Jelena shrugged, shattering Zero’s hopes of somehow managing to master feminine psychology any time soon. “Why don’t you just ask a tutor? They’re here for a reason, you know.”

He laughed dryly. “I can’t go there.”

“Oh, because you’ve got a reputation? You don’t have a choice, dumbnut.”

Zero glared at her. “I can’t go there _because_ I already looked into it and the only one available these days is Goodyear. As in, _Ginny’s brother_.”

Jelena turned on the spot, looking at him with a beyond-annoyed expression. She heaved a long sigh, resting her hand on her skinny hip. “Let me tell you something, if you kept your dick in your pants every now and then, these things wouldn’t be happening to you.”

“Like you never broke up with a text,” he scoffed.

“First of all, no, I never have,” she said slowly. “Secondly, you should have probably avoided drooling over Sinclair for over two weeks before you ditched her.... _with a text_.”

Zero huffed. That wasn’t a good reason for Ginny’s brother to suddenly act like he could rip his fucking skin off. Was he the only one to see that it wasn’t a big deal? Was he the only one who understood that high school wasn’t a place where you were supposed to meet your stupid _soulmate_? Jeez, how childish could people be? If you couldn’t use the goddamn technology in your daily life, what was the point, seriously?

“Can we go back to the part where I really need your fucking help? Don’t force me to beg.”

“I told you, I _can’t_. What about Raquel?”

“We aren’t exactly… compatible,” he cringed.

Understatement of the year. The one time they had worked together on a project was during their junior year and he thought she was ready to stab him before the end of their work session, which had ended with Raquel throwing him out of the room to get the work done and Zero _politely_ having a little discussion with her older sister Adriana ( _no_ , he hadn’t been hitting on her, he was just that charming with everyone).

“Kyle,” Jelena suddenly said, just as Kyle hovered next to them, “explain to your dummy friend over here that he can’t be picky over the choice of the people willing to help him.”

“What have you done this time?” Kyle deadpanned, tilting her head as she looked up at him.

“I didn’t do anything!” Zero protested. “I need help raising my grades to stay on the team, the only tutor available detests me for fucking his sister, and everybody else is apparently busy for the next three years or so. So no, I’m not being _picky_!”

Kyle and Jelena shared a look and Kyle simply huffed a long sigh, before turning back with an eye-roll. “Don’t worry it’s gonna be fine. I’ll try to think of someone,” she said, nudging him amicably before walking away, following Jelena close behind.


	5. Jude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things are finally starting to move for the boys! 👀

Jude had never felt like he was spoiled, mostly because he had spent a lifetime surrounded by privileged kids who were constantly asking for more than they already had. It wasn’t until he was sitting behind the steering wheel of his brand new car that he started to consider the fact that, yes, maybe he was actually a crazy-spoiled brat. Most people would have been a bit more excited than he was to be the owner, at 17, of a third-generation Porsche Cayenne Turbo.

“Freshly imported from Germany,” his dad had announced, visibly pleased with himself, as he had tossed him the keys the previous evening.

Honestly? It really was the coolest gift ever. After all, all he had done so far was travel by plane, from Destination A to Destination B. If it hadn’t been for a quasi-constant sting in his stomach ever since, Jude could have said that it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He got a new car, he was getting all pampered by his parents, and Destination B happened to be one of the cities with the highest sunshine rate in the country.

Really, he shouldn’t be sulking. But he was. _Sulking_ ,.. After nearly three weeks of nothing, Jude was succumbing to temptation, literally hunting down the asshole who had stolen his heart away without a look back. He had gone through it all: Instagram, Twitter, RK, and all the others. He had stared at Connor’s smirking face selfie after selfie, hating himself every time his eyes automatically glaring at every unknown face standing far too close. Who even were all those people around him? Though there were many, none of these people appeared more than once in the pictures — aside from a tall girl with straight black hair who happened to be Connor’s sister, Alana.

Jude’s eyes were scanning a selfie taken with two boys he didn’t know anything about — Instagram identified them as Kell and Riad, neither of which were remotely close to any name he had ever heard. Something tightened in his throat as he kept staring at the picture. The three of them were grinning broadly at the camera, obnoxiously gesturing with their hands, with nothing but a blue sky behind them.

_Which one are you pinning against the wall as soon as the fricking door shuts?_ Jude couldn’t stop himself from wondering bitterly. _Which one gets to see you lose your dumbass persona for a few seconds when you come untouched?_ His eyes started stinging and he blinked furiously, glancing up through the tinted windshield to take away some of his frustration.

Cars and students were starting to flood the parking lot — calling out to other people, sharing jokes, fussing, _living_. It was making him incredibly sick all of a sudden. _Fuck the damn car_. Jude quit the app and locked his phone, letting his hands wander on the steering wheel after tossing phone onto the passenger’s seat. He could ditch school, but to go where? There literally were _security cameras_ in the house, even if Lionel wasn’t home she’d find out about it. He had nowhere else to go and he didn’t particularly fancy driving around the city all day long, just waiting for hours to pass.

He ran a hand through his hair, then with a huff he grabbed his phone, backpack, and climbed out, startling those who had taken notice of the fancy car. He wanted to say something mean, probably something that could get him beaten up in another, even more ‘second-class’, high school, but instead he just slammed the door shut with a glare.

“Nice car, dude,” a guy grinned at him with a wave as he passed by.

Jude didn’t reply and simply made his way inside the building. The rest of the day went by in a fog of anger, and it must have shown because Raquel dragged him away so they could have lunch together.

“They’ll think I’m stealing you,” Jude pointed out dryly as they sat down at an exterior table.

She shrugged. “We aren’t glued at the hip. And I think Jelena’s in quite good hands, you know, with her boyfriend and all.”

He hummed in response, the b-word immediately sending him back to Connor and the jerks he had seen on Instagram. He was determined to keep it all to himself like a big boy until he met with a questioning glance from Raquel. “The… the guy I told you about,” he mumbled. “He ghosted me.”

She scrunched her nose. “How serious are we talking?”

He pursed his lips and looked in the distance. “Three weeks. Well, almost three weeks. Said he’d call.”

“And he didn’t,” Raquel completed. “Do you still hope for him to call now?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m mad at him. We’ve… Boarding school is such a different world. You don’t just spend your days with people, you spend all your time with them. The truth is I miss him, you know?”

Raquel hummed a small ‘makes sense’ and he stared at the table with a sigh. “Anyway. It doesn’t matter. I just made a fool of myself to believe in… in stuff.”

“How serious did the two of you get?” Raquel asked, cocking her head.

Jude fought a blush and cleared his throat. “Not- not _all the way_ but- kinda serious, I guess…”

Serious enough to know that there was someone in this world who had seen him naked and touched him in places that simple friends didn’t go, which was kind of a _pretty big deal_ at his age. Not that he was self-conscious about himself, but it still felt weird and he just couldn’t seem to be able to process that it could all be over just like that after everything that had happened.

Raquel squeezed his arm in sympathy. “He’s a total jerk. I’m sorry.”

Jude averted his eyes and mumbled a ‘yeah’, just as the bell rang for next period.

*

“Jude, honey?”

Jude looked up over the edge of the couch in the family room (one of the few spaces in the house where he was actually allowed to relax on the furniture), taking his attention away from the large TV screen as Lionel strolled in.

“I thought you had left already,” he observed dryly. He had figured he wasn’t some clandestine occupant of the house and moping alone in his bedroom probably wasn’t going to improve his mood anytime soon — although moping alone in the family room hadn’t been particularly comforting either so far.

“I was, but Ludo said you have a friend waiting for you?” she said, rummaging for her sunglasses in her designer purse. “He just let them in.”

Jude frowned. Oh shit. _Oh shit_. He stood up from the couch and shut the TV off quickly. “Oh damn, I had forgotten about that,” he mumbled. “I’m just helping out with some homework.”

Something he had completely _forgotten_. He regretted saying yes to Kyle all of a sudden, but he couldn’t really tell her _now_ especially because she’d be tempted to ask why and he had no excuse to give, and ‘sorry-but-I-can’t-function-properly-today-because-my-ex-boyfriend/not-boyfriend-is-ignoring-me-and-by-the-way-breaking-news-I’m-gay’ didn’t seem like a very good way out.

“Oh,” Lionel said. “Alright then.”

He walked past her and she followed him down the stairs. “You just arrived, aren’t you the one who’s supposed to ask for help?”

“The perks of being a genius,” Jude sneered.

“That’s my boy,” his stepmom grinned with a small pat on his shoulder, before putting her sunglasses on.

She opened the large, wrought iron entrance door and stepped outside, just as a familiar outline showed up in Jude’s visual field. Honestly? He was unable to actually describe the feeling that washed over him when he realized that it was so very much not _Kyle_. He was tempted to call it disappointment, but that wasn’t quite right. The more pressing need he was feeling right now was to reread the damn texts he had exchanged with the blonde girl the day before. How the fuck did he misunderstand the situation so badly? He had no idea Zero would be here!

For _tutoring sessions_.

Not Kyle. _Zero_. The evil twin.

Everything in his demeanor screamed _heartthrob_ from ten miles away, which was probably the exact distance from which you’d spot his eyes. And now _he_ was supposed to spend _hours_ on his own with _him_ on a daily basis? Is the world messing with him now? He really _meant it_ when he had decided that he was _not_ going to fall for another stupid jock. _He had meant it_. His heart was already painfully taken. So why was this happening? Was it something stupid to test his mental strength?

_I don’t have any mental strength_ , he complained inwardly. _I’m seventeen and I’m gay and I’m pretty sure he could pass as the hidden son of David Beckham and Elsa Hosk. I can’t._

What was the saying again?

Plenty more fish in the sea? _I think the fuck not_.

Jude watched as Lionel and Zero exchanged a polite nod, then she disappeared around the corner and all he was left to stare at was the baller. “Hey,” he said, trying to sound casual and not like he wanted to go upstairs and shut himself in his room for goddamn ever.

“I literally had to show my _ID_ before getting in. You really hate me that much?” Zero said, sounding annoyed.

Jude cocked an eyebrow. “It’s standard procedure,” he shrugged. “Trust me, if I had a say in it, I’d get rid of all this bullshit in a blink.”

Zero stared at him, unimpressed. “Wow, you didn’t even pick up on the ‘hating me’ thing? Tough one, dude.”

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” Jude deadpanned.

Would he have the stupid balls to just turn back and walk away this time? Jude was a little bit intrigued to see his reaction and observed, probably not very subtly, as various emotions seemed to be playing on Zero’s face.

The baller finally huffed. “Alright, I’m already regretting this, but thanks for taking pity on me,” Zero replied, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Jude was tempted to tell him that he hadn’t taken pity on him because he had no clue he was coming in the first place, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to bite back. Instead, he stepped away from the doorway to let him in, and after an awkward pause, Zero caved in and stepped forward, almost like he was doing him a favor. Jude rolled his eyes behind his back and closed the front door.

Zero glanced around a little, taking in the new surroundings. It felt so alien, having him here, Jude momentarily forgot that he would have been entitled to say _no_ to Zero and he’d have still been in the right, according to most people. After all, the baller hadn’t been exactly _welcoming_.

“Let’s just, uh, let’s just go to my bedroom,” Jude cleared his throat after a while, and fought hard to keep his face perfectly collected while saying it. It wasn’t a good day to start turning harmless comments into something dirty.

They climbed up the staircase and Zero glanced down the other end of the corridor where Rhonda, one of the two housekeepers, was entering the family room. “How many people are in your house exactly?”

Jude shrugged slightly as he pushed open the door to his bedroom. He wasn’t a messy person but all of a sudden he was really self-conscious about the whole ‘having someone in your bedroom’ thing. He tried to double-check if there was anything to be ashamed of on display, but then he remembered Rhonda being two rooms away and figured she probably would have taken care of that already.

“Does it matter?” Jude asked, stepping in his room with Zero on his tail.

Zero’s eyes wandered around a bit. In complete honesty, his bedroom was probably the most casual, simplest space in this house. Really. There was a bed, a carpet, some furniture, a desk… no big deal. Except maybe the walk-in closet, which took up an entire wall and potentially doubled the square footage of the bedroom — he wasn’t sure. There was also a flat screen TV on another wall. But the rest was really no big deal. Really…

“It’s kind of weird, you know,” Zero replied after a while, as he was looking vacantly at an empty shelf, frowning slightly to himself.

After a week of having to stare at his trophies, Jude had gathered the whole lot, wrapped them all up in bubble-wrap and stowed them away in the depths of his closet. Jude looked away and sat on the edge of his bed. “It’s not _weird_. You’re talking to someone who only ever had as much privacy as a boarding school would let him. I’m just used to having people around.”

Zero turned on the spot, already snickering. “So that they could pamper you?”

“What? _No_ ,” Jude scoffed. “I’m just used to having people around, period.” Then he added: “It makes me kinda anxious when the house is empty.”

Wow, confession time apparently. _Snap out of it Kinkade_ , he mentally admonished himself. This was Zero right in front of him. If they managed to get this session done without jumping down each other’s throat, it would already be an accomplishment in itself. The last thing he needed was for the baller to suddenly decide, all over again, that it was funny to be an asshole to him -first thing tomorrow morning — and likely in front of everyone at school.

“Is it ever empty?”

Jude hummed and looked up, a little lost at first. “Oh, uh, sometimes. At night, mostly.”

He felt like he was frying under his blue eyes, which was starting to make him feel really uneasy.

“So you have actual security guards, and they leave at night,” Zero deadpanned.

“There’s another team that takes over at night,” Jude sighed heavily, more than half-bored by the conversation, “ _but_ aside from them, the house is empty. We don’t have- like, _servants_.”

The baller eventually turned to him completely, blatantly staring at him now. “You didn’t answer me though.”

“Because it’s stupid,” Jude huffed.

There was a short silence, and Zero’s lips curled into a smirk. “You don’t know, do you?”

Jude opened his mouth and closed it. “I don’t know everybody’s whereabouts,” he brushed off eventually. “I’m not the one hiring them and I’m not the one paying them. If anything I’m, like, a guest or something.”

“A guest who gets to use a Porsche Cayenne. Is there a way I can become a guest too?” Zero snorted.

Oh man. This conversation would never end. “You spend ten years away, barely seeing your folks, and you get one, according to my dad.”

“Sign me up," Zero replied right away. Jude frowned a little to himself, confused. There had been a sudden change in the atmosphere, and he didn’t know why exactly. “I can’t believe you’ve got a third-generation PC though. They aren’t even on the market yet. They were only just presented last summer!”

That was it. He wasn’t going to be judged for free when he had done nothing wrong. He wasn’t going to apologize for being born in this family, and if that wasn’t enough for Mr. Zero Whatever-his-last-name-is, then he can suck it up and go ask someone else for help. “Can we go back to the part where you’re here for me to help you and not for you to judge the spoiled brat that I am?” Jude bit back.

“I’m good at multitasking,” Zero retorted.

Jude blinked, then huffed. “You’re an ass.”

Eventually, Zero conceded to sit next to him on the edge of the bed, letting his backpack sliding off his shoulder. There was a shadow of a smile on his face and it should definitely not have been so endearing. “That’s standard procedure.”

*

One thing that Jude would have never imagined, even during their first tutoring session, was that Zero would become a constant in his daily schedule.

“I wonder how you could even maintain your grades last year,” Jude observed dryly half-way through his third explanation of… well, at this point, _what the hell trigonometry even was_. Really? They were starting that low?!

Zero had shrugged in response, playing with a pen, making it turn and twist obnoxiously between his fingers until Jude snatched it away. He wasn’t a math person. And from what Jude had seen from history homework and English assignments, he doubted Zero was a school person _at all_. He didn’t just need a few tutoring sessions, he needed a _whole new brain_.

They had met first on Tuesday afternoon. By the second session, on Thursday, Jude was already tempted to call it off because Zero didn’t look like he had been remotely trying to remember what Jude had spent an hour explaining two days before.

Jude took a deep breath. “If h is the height, t is the function of time, and h = 51 meters, then t…?”

“T equals…. 51?” Zero replied slowly.

Jude let his back fall flat against the side of his bed, his hands shooting up to his face. “Oh for God’s sake! You’re not even trying!”

“I _am_ trying, Mr. Smartass,” Zero bit back. “I’m not a freaking natural.”

Jude glared at him. “You’re just throwing out numbers randomly! That’s _not_ trying. I don’t know how I can help you if you’re not even really listening.”

Zero straightened and crossed his legs. “Look, I can’t get kicked off the team. That’s not going to happen. If I have to study fifteen hours a day to understand shit, I will. I just need some time.”

“Well, if it takes you fifteen hours to get that, then we’re gonna be really far behind on the schedule,” Jude pointed out dryly.

“Let’s add it up,” Zero said, the exercise momentarily forgotten. Jude quirked a brow and gave him his best ‘what are you talking about’ look. “I’m not going to get anything done with four hours a week.”

“What about Basketball?”

“Official practice starts mid-November,” Zero waved. “Maybe we could upgrade to a couple more sessions a week?”

“I don’t know,” Jude said carefully. “Do you think I’m the right person to do this? Honestly, I’m not great at explaining things.”

“No. It’s going to be fine, it will work out,” Zero answered, and his voice was so full of determination that Jude was stupefied for a second. Maybe he had been judging him a little hastily. Maybe Zero wasn’t so much of a fucker after all. “Unless you got anything better to do,” he added, and it sounded like a challenge.

Jude glanced at him, unimpressed. “I’m merely considering how having you here on a daily basis is going to damage my brain cells.”

“Oh fuck off, Kinkade,” Zero huffed, shaking his head.

The worst part? He was being absolutely honest. Not because Zero was stupid, but because Zero was _Zero_. There was no way he could explain that better. Zero was like… an overwhelming presence. There was this whole electricity that seemed to be radiating from him, making Jude wonder if he would get struck if he dared come too close. They had settled on meeting every day after school to try and make up for Zero’s upcoming busy schedule. The weekends were for the emergency situations, as Jude labelled it, which made Zero laugh for a solid minute.

“I work on weekends,” Zero pointed out once he had managed to stop laughing like an idiot. “My shifts end at 6PM.”

“Hey, I’m not going to wait for your ass to be available all weekend long, don’t flatter yourself,” Jude snorted. “I’ve got other stuff to do at times. So if you really need something on a weekend, we’ll see after your shifts if I’m free.”

“It must take some time to count all that money you’re sitting on,” Zero countered, only half-joking, as he was picking up his stuff.

As always, Jude felt something churn in his stomach, not because he was upset, but because he liked it. He liked the casualness of it all. And some part of him was practically _sure_ that he shouldn’t.

Jude handed him an old assignment they had been going through when his eyes darted over a small detail he hadn’t noticed yet. “Wow, I can’t believe you’re making fun of my Beatles-related name with a name like _yours_.”

Zero glared at him and attempted to snatch the paper out of his hands, but Jude had the stupid reflex to hold it out of reach and now it looked like they were playing Twister, with Zero leaning on top of him, one knee on the floor between Jude’s legs. An awkward, deadly Twister game, because Jude was positive Zero wanted to murder him right now. Without a word, Jude slowly gave him back the paper, if only to get him off him and get back to a normal heartbeat.

“It’s Polish,” Zero replied, almost defensively, as he carelessly buried the paper in his backpack.

“I know that,” Jude said, and Zero looked down at him, his blue eyes still furiously throwing daggers. “Wasjelevskí… That doesn’t sound very West Coast.”

Zero paused, mid-zipping his backpack. “Most people are too dumb to know how it’s pronounced,” he mumbled. “Hence why I don’t use it whenever I can get away with it.”

Jude stood up, tugging at the hem of his shirt. He didn’t know it was possible to make the situation even more awkward but in any case he had managed, apparently. “I… uh, I had this friend in boarding school. Polish mom. Lots of polish curses.”

Zero snorted and left, surprisingly without punching him.

It was Friday afternoon, their third session had ended and Jude’s brain was dangerously on the verge of becoming a mess, assuming it wasn’t already. He fell flat on his bed, staring at the ceiling, a dull pain in his chest as the silence dragged on and on. He didn’t know what was worse. The prospect of remaining devoted to a relationship that wasn’t even really one in the first place, or the potential idea of falling for a straight boy.

It was painful, really, but more than that, it was painfully stupid.

The oldest gay tale in the world. His eyes fell shut and he swallowed thickly. He wished there was a way to quit, to just stop having these feelings for two people who were both out of reach, but it wasn’t nearly as easy as that. It wasn’t something he could control. It wasn’t something he could just… _cancel_.

His eyes snapped open and he sat up. Maybe it was, after all. Maybe it was as easy as that.

Maybe it was as easy as sending a text.

Jude grabbed his phone, discarded on the comforter and scrolled through the freshly inaugurated conversations of the past few days, before hitting the name Connor in the list. He took a deep breath and started writing.

_Hey._

_I miss you._


	6. Zero

Zero had always prided himself on not having foolish dreams or hopes. Those two things tended to be crushed when you were part of this tiny percentage of foster kids who had no means whatsoever to get out of the foster system. The only foolish hope he had never stopped nurturing over the years though, was that something terrible would someday happen to Leo Deluca. That someone would show up at the house to tell his wife Carla that he had been killed by accident on one of the construction sites he was working on, and that would be it.

But Leo Deluca kept coming back from work, over and over again.

Weekends were the worst. Zero’s part-time job only kept him busy a certain number of hours, and the chances of coming back to a house enacting WWIII was enough to plague his day with a constant feeling of irritability and uneasiness. It always started with little things. The TV wasn’t working, or sometimes just not turning on fast enough. Someone talked about regretting Obama on the news. There were too many commercials during a stupid football game, a parking ticket, a scolding at work…. It always spiraled pretty fast after that, and if, like Zero, you happened to have ‘a face everyone wanted to punch’, it spiraled even faster.

It wasn’t the main reason why his grades sucked. Nor was his noisy (and _nosy_ ) roommate, who liked to listen to his goddamn music too loud for his earbuds to take it. It was because he sucked in the first place, altogether, and he would have made peace with it if only Basketball didn’t depend on it. Coming back to the Delucas’ after an afternoon spent with Kinkade wasn’t something Zero had thought could be worse than coming back there after an afternoon spent with the Gang, but he couldn’t really explain why. He just couldn’t explain why he felt increasingly colder and colder as he put miles between them, or why he kept replaying in his head that stupid, stupid little moment of wrestling that had his stomach fucked up.

Another weekend rolled in, far too slow for Zero’s taste, and he was still trying to figure shit out in math, while his dumbass of a foster father was yelling his lungs out at the TV two rooms away — probably because the stupid Los Angeles Rams that he loved _so dearly_ were getting their ass kicked like never before. Thiago was humming obnoxiously to a Wiz Khalifa song Zero wished he didn’t have to hear, his phone tinging every now and then with incoming notifications. He would have told him to shut the fuck up if history hadn’t proven already that it was a waste of time. With a frustrated hiss threatening to spill from his lips, Zero ran his hand through his hair, reading and rereading the goddamn math problem, when a flow of curses coming from the living room reached the bedroom.

The door opened, the sound of the TV invading the small bedroom a couple of decibels more. “Carla says you need to go take a look at the TV,” Michelle, one of the two girls living here alongside them, said from the doorway.

Zero didn’t look up and he knew he didn’t need to when Thiago immediately added: “Why _me_? He can go.”

“Carla said you, your problem.”

Michelle left the door hanging open as she walked away.

“ _Why the fuck isn’t it fucking working? Who the fuck touched that TV?!”_ Deluca yelled from the living room.

“If he touches me I’ll send him my fucking stepdad,” Thiago spat as he begrudgingly stood up from his bed, door slamming shut behind him.

Zero let his head drop in his hands with a sigh. He couldn’t care less about Thiago’s stupid stepdad (a drug dealer according to the kid, most likely a second-class drug seller according to Zero) or about the freaking Los Angeles Rams. All he wanted was for his fucking brain to start working properly. He wasn’t _stupid_. He could figure it out. It seemed so easy with Kinkade, why was it _so hard_ for him? These were just goddamn _numbers_.

In the living room, Thiago’s grumbles added to the sound of the TV. With another sigh Zero rubbed the back of his neck, staring at his phone on the mattress. Kinkade had said emergency. As in, ‘if you’re not dying, get your head out of your ass and figure it out on your own’. He was definitely not dying, and Kinkade probably had other things to do.

He scoffed at himself. As if he _needed_ him.

The fact that he had gotten his Polish name right didn’t make them friends all of a sudden. It certainly _didn’t_. He would get over that stupid math problem, he would figure it out, and soon he wouldn’t even be in need of a tutor whatsoever.

Wishful thinking, some may say.

Determination, Zero preferred.

He unlocked his phone and started spamming the groupchat he was sharing with Derek, Terrence and Kyle.

 **Zeroh_La_La:** _lemme tell you something_

 **Zeroh_La_La:** _i hate math_

 **Zeroh_La_La:** _that’s it_

 **Zeroh_La_La:** _that’s the ted talk_

**Piece_of_Hart:** _what about jude?_

**Piece_of_Hart:** _wait no don’t tell me you got him mad too_

**Roman_Emperor:** _have you seen his face? impossible to get mad at him_ 💕

 **Zeroh_La_La:** _i want to say ‘thank you’ but you’re such a shady bitch_

**Roman_Emperor:** _i’m sure the heart emoji gave it away_

**Terryble:** _dickheads_

**Terryble:** _you know you could start by paying attention in class, just sayin’_

**Zeroh_La_La:** _thanks mom_

 **Piece_of_Hart:** _jude says you guys are practicing adding first thing Monday afternoon_ 😂

Zero considered replying with an emoji that would convey his offense, his pettiness and his (slight) amusement, but soon there was more yelling coming from the living room, the sound of something being smashed on the ground and shattering with a ‘ _there’s your fucking remote!_ ’ and immediately the smile disappeared from his face.

Fucking house.

Fucking people.

*

“We need to talk,” Zero said, bluntly yet well-assured, when he caught sight of Sadie on Monday morning.

It was between his second and third period and he’d rather die than admit that he had been replaying this in his head for the first two hours — and probably two or three more hours before that.

Sadie smiled at him e _xpectantly_. Honestly? He didn’t know what to do with that. He forced himself to keep a straight face anyway.

“Did you see I tagged you on a pic this weekend?” she replied, playing with her hair as she spoke. 

He restrained an eye-roll. Of course he had seen it. It wasn’t exactly _subtle_. She had literally found nothing better to do than to dig up an old selfie of the two of them from last spring.

“I’m not here to talk about Insta stuff,” he brushed off, folding his arms over his chest. “You gotta stop, Sad.”

She darted her green eyes up at him. “Stop what?”

Second eye-roll restrained. She wasn’t stupid and it didn’t suit her well to play pretend. “The sweatshirts, the Instagram posts, the talking at parties!” Zero huffed, already losing patience. “You and I, we’re over, stop playing dumb! Just give me back my stuff and you can just go back to screwing Abramson.”

“I don’t care about him!” she protested adamantly, drawing some stares as other students passed by. “I care about you.”

Yeah sure, because people cheated when they cared, he thought bitterly. Thinking about it made his blood boil in his veins and his fingers dug in his own biceps as he tried desperately to keep calm. He suddenly remembered that the three magic words had been spoken and that he could walk away now — it was done. The fact that Sadie was or was not dealing with the information wasn’t his problem now.

He gave her a bitter smile. “Well, not my problem. You chose him, your loss,” he threw as he strode away. Or rather, _attempted to,_ because suddenly Sadie grabbed his arm.

“Zero, wait-,” she said suddenly. “Is there anyone else?”

For a second he was too stunned to answer. “What?” he asked, voice faltering a little.

God he was going to regret showing that tiny little bit of weakness later. Sadie had the decency to let go of his arm, but she looked at him blatantly. There was such a shift in their dynamic that he was absolutely convinced, by the look on her face, that he was the one who had screwed this up, if only for a second. A feeling that certainly didn’t die down when she elaborated a little: “It’s Kyle isn’t it?”

He scoffed. “Of course not!”

“You’re sleeping with her!” Sadie insisted.

“Exactly! We’re sleeping! That’s _all_ we do!” Zero bit back.

And just like that he knew he was positively screwed for a clean break. She had managed to make it ugly in a fifteen second span of time.

“You’re _sleeping_ _with her_ , Zero,” she repeated, “and you talk with her all the damn time and you laugh with her and you always find the time to see her! What am I supposed to think when I find out that you’re too busy to answer my _texts_ but you have time to hang out with her?”

 _Ah, uh uh, no_. No way. She wasn’t going to play this card, not when she was the one who had stabbed him in the back in the first place. “Stop acting like I’m the asshole here,” he gritted. “You cheated on me, period. Now if _I_ want to be with someone else, whether it’s Kyle or not, that’s not your fucking business.”

Granting her a final glare, he strode away furiously. Partly because he didn’t want to have to endure her eyes on him as he would be walking all the way to the stairs on the other side of the hallway, partly because there was a shortcut, Zero turned right immediately.

Fucking Sadie. The worst part? He wasn’t even fucking surprised all that much. Sure, he hadn’t exactly _expected_ her to bite back like that, but it did sound a bit like-

A door suddenly opened, practically right in his face, and Zero almost stumbled back to avoid it, spitting out a furious “ _hey!_ ”

“Oh, damn, sorry,” Kinkade said, wincing, as he closed the door shut behind him.

Zero stared at him, slightly taken aback as his anger seemed to freeze for a moment. “What the hell are you doing here?” he frowned.

It might have been stupid but he hadn’t pictured Jude ‘Perfect-Grades’ Kinkade to be the kind to be late. He probably had a perfect attendance records or some crazy shit like that.

Kinkade pointed at the name on the door (WARREN, SCHOOL COUNCELOR). “I’ve got a free period and still had some stuff to sort out. You know, transfer student and all.”

Zero hummed in response. “Right.”

“Free period too?” Kinkade asked after a second.

“Yes,” Zero said instinctively. Maybe he would regret it, if anybody was in the mood to annoy the fuck out of him with something as stupid as _detention_ , but right now, even without any forethought, he was finding that it was the right call. “Wanna, er… Wanna hang out?”

Kinkade seemed surprised and cocked an eyebrow. “So you don’t think that, like, being seen with me in public will affect your social life or something?” he deadpanned.

Zero snorted. “Who said we were gonna be seen by anybody? That’s kinda the plan, not to be seen. C’mon.”

*

As it turned out, Kinkade _barely_ protested when he found out that his plan was to hang out in the ballers’ empty weight room.

“You guys really have a weight room just for you?” Kinkade asked, glancing around.

“Yeah. Some alumni made a ton of cash in Silicon Valley and gave some to the school. Geyer probably thinks it’s good publicity to shower the jocks with it or something.”

Kinkade sneered. “Different coast, same idea.”

They sat on one of the bench presses, and as far as Zero was concerned, most of the next forty minutes went by at light speed, so fast he hardly remembered most of what they talked about. He picked on Kinkade at one point about lifting some, but the conversation drifted onto something else before he could point out that Kinkade looked pretty _ripped_ for doing nothing but math exercises. Like, there were plenty of nerds in this school and none, _none_ , looked like Kinkade. It probably had to do with the stuff he was wearing. Like those t-shirts. They weren’t exactly _tight,_ they just fit him well — and Kinkade was _always_ wearing t-shirts.

Jude looked at him at some point, eyebrow raised. “You skipped class, didn’t you?”

Zero shrugged. “Wasn’t in the mood,” he waved. “Guess it never happened to you, Mr. Perfect.”

There was a short moment of silence, before Kinkade huffed a snort. “You’d be surprised.”

“I don’t think I would be,” Zero retorted, purposely looking somewhere else, like it was no big deal.

“You don’t think I’m capable of skipping _period_?” Kinkade exclaimed, offended.

“I just think you’re the whole catch and you probably never felt the need to.”

Kinkade started laughing, a real, heartfelt laugh, and for some reason it was a beautiful sight. His haircut was a little messed up, and Zero could picture him running his fingers through the brown strands over and over again as Kinkade was thinking. It hadn’t been hard to pick up on that habit of his after only a couple of hours spent in his company, since he was did it so often.

Zero quickly looked away, feeling his stomach churn a little as Kinkade regained some of his composure.

“Trust me,” he said, his voice a little hoarse, “my school just had a different way of… _skipping class._ ”

“Let me guess, you fired the teachers methodically until there was no one left?” Zero deadpanned.

Kinkade snorted. “Close enough. I went to a Greek Island once, for a birthday party.” Zero’s eyebrows shot up. “It didn’t go very well but it was worth a shot.”

“You went to the other side of the world,” Zero articulated.

Kinkade cleared his throat and rubbed his arm. “Yeah well… It’s, uh, it’s a bit of a blurry concept for… well, for kids like me I guess. Some can be really over the top. The world’s just like a big playground to them. What’s a fifteen hour flight with Champagne and friends?”

Zero hummed in response, trying to hide the way his smile had frozen on his face.

There it was, the good old ‘rich-ass kid’ vibe. _Honestly though, he just took pity on you_. Rich kids don’t hang out with foster kids. Chances are he doesn’t even know what a mess his familial situation was and he’d act all embarrassed when he’d find out. That’s why he would have to move his ass and figure a way to secure his grades on his own before Kinkade would have to dump him as a friend.

“Hey,” Kinkade said, nudging him. “Did you just _zone out_?”

Zero glared at him. “It tends to happen when I hear about your stupid billionaire kid nonsense.”

For a second, it looked like Kinkade was too stupefied to answer. “Yeah. Right, never mind.”

Oh.

Zero felt uncomfortable all of a sudden, and the awkward silence between them seemed to drag on for hours. Kinkade was looking off in the distance, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. Zero couldn’t quite pinpoint how it was even possible that he could go from looking like a smug asshole to a friendly, helpful classmate in such a short span of time, but apparently Kinkade had a talent for it.

Zero folded his hands to forbid himself from any stupid thoughts — like, brushing away a stupid, _stupid_ strand of hair off Kinkade’s forehead.

“Need some help after school?” Kinkade eventually asked, and really, Zero wanted to face-palm himself.

 _Just stop being nice!_ he wanted to yell. _Be a real ass, be a smug asshole, hate me, tell me I’m no one to talk to you that way!_ But no, Jude Kinkade was just that nice and Zero was torn between resentment and desperation. If you hurt someone who was that nice then you were the real ass, which was slightly inconvenient, really, because he was already too many not-so-nice things.

“Er, yeah?” he mumbled, slightly unsure. “I mean if- if that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah. It’s fine. Don’t have a lot of stuff to do anyway,” Kinkade admitted.

The bell rang outside of the room and Zero felt a weight lift off his chest. Lunch, _people_ … Other people. Good. Kinkade seemed to think the same because they both stood up in a single move and headed outside. By the time they reached _their_ friends (along the way, Zero had apparently learned to share), the news of his breakup with Sadie had already come full-circle, hitting him straight in the face all over again.

“You’re better off without her,” Jelena casually shrugged, sententiously.

A collective hum of approval welcomed her statement and Zero pulled a face. “Can we move onto another subject that doesn’t involve my private life now?”

Kyle enthusiastically swallowed down her forkful of spaghetti. “Halloween!” she exclaimed once she was done with mutely gesturing with her hands. “I hope you guys have your costumes ready.”

Zero inwardly groaned. Last year Kyle had managed to convince him to put on full skull make-up, but she wouldn’t do so well this time. He couldn’t remember how much time he spent trying to remove the whole thing.

“Is there anything special going on?” Kinkade asked, furrowing his brow.

“Party at my place, dude,” Terrence pointed at himself while he spoke. “Parents-free, my dad’s out of town for business.”

“It’s a tradition,” Jelena added. “You must come, it’s going to be fun.”

“It’s on Tuesday night,” Kinkade shrugged. “Not sure my stepmom will let me go. I don’t really know, er… the _policy_ regarding school nights and stuff.”

Despite having spent some time at the Kinkades’ these past few days, Zero had never heard much about her. But if Kinkade was getting along with his stepmother as well as Terrence and his baby bros were with their own, he probably won’t risk that happening any time soon.

“But it’s Halloween and it’s going to be _fun_ ,” Kyle pouted. “Say you’re going to try at least!”

“You do know that I only dress up in some lame costume simply because you won’t let me live otherwise?” Derek intervened, glancing at Kyle.

“Your point being?” she asked sweetly.

“Not everyone is crazy about Halloween,” Zero provided.

Terrence huffed, nudging him. “C’mon, it’s fun.” He turned to Kinkade. “Don’t listen to them, they’re killjoys.”

*

It kept going on.

Kinkade just helped him afternoon after afternoon and Zero didn’t really know what to think anymore. One of those days, he literally offered Zero a ride to his place, and that was the story of how Zero found himself sitting in a Porsche Cayenne that wasn’t on the market yet, on a freaking daily basis. The bright side was that he didn’t need to show his ID anymore and that was a relief to his pride. Every time the car would appear in front of the gate, it would open miraculously and Kinkade would simply make a lazy sign with his fingers through the open window as a thank you to whoever was allowing them passage.

Zero hated it.

He hated the fact that it looked… _hot_. He hated how effortlessly good-looking Kinkade could be, and those sunglasses, and those damn _biceps_. What the hell were even those? They weren’t _massive_ but they just looked good, like the rest of Kinkade.

And that was fucking _not_ okay.

On Tuesday, Zero felt like he had enough of staring at Kinkade’s arms — which was stupid because his own arms were very nice, thank you very much. “Why are you always wearing t- _shirts_? I know it’s LA but there’s, like, air conditioning, you know,” Zero eventually sighed.

Kinkade looked up from his advanced biology textbook. “I’ve spent ten years in the Maine. It’s freaking chilly most of the year. I’m just not used to this kind of weather,” he shrugged. “I swear, I feel like I’m walking in a furnace all day long.”

Zero had to laugh at that statement, and just left it at that... mostly. Because throughout this new session, he kept noticing that only Kinkade’s left hand kept running through his hair, that he had the most blinding smile Zero had ever seen when he (sometimes) let his guard down, and even that (at some point, when Zero’s knee brushed against his thigh as he uncrossed his legs) he realized there seemed to be more muscles he hadn’t thought about under that pair of jeans.

On Wednesday, he knew he was positively screwed, even _before_ the eyes incident.

Before he opened his big, fat mouth and said the first thing that came to his mind — something he wasn’t really doing all that often, because generally it was something people wouldn’t take very well and he had learned from his mistakes. They were sitting on the floor, next to each other, and between two nerve-wracking math problems, he had looked up at Kinkade, who was getting his own homework done in the meantime, long enough to notice there was something different about him, and long enough for Kinkade to find it so creepy that he had to look up from his textbook with a quizzical expression. 

“Your eyes,” Zero said eventually. “They are green.”

They weren’t green, not usually. Did that mean that he was really so focused on himself that he couldn’t make up someone else’s eye-color? _No_. He was practically sure his eyes weren’t green.

Kinkade huffed and shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “Nah, they aren’t.”

“Well, I know my colors,” Zero countered matter-of-factly, “and that is definitely green.”

“It changes,” Kinkade waved. “Depends on various things, actually… The light, mostly. They aren’t just one, defined color. Pretty fucked up if you ask me.”

Zero blinked once or twice, then tried to focus again on his math, but after reading and re-reading the same sentence about fifteen times, he assumed he could use a break. He _deserved_ a break. But he wouldn’t be caught trying to remember what Kinkade’s eye-color was the day he had magically surfaced back into everybody’s life. If anything, it just bugged him. Kinkade had said it himself, after all. This whole eye-color thing was fucked up.

“Did you ask your stepmother about the party at Wall’s?” Zero asked casually.

Kinkade didn’t look up from his textbook. “Not yet. Did you?”

Zero frowned. “Did I what?”

“Ask your parents,” Kinkade hummed as he bit at the end of his pencil with a concentrated frown, still not looking up.

And that’s when Zero started gaping, his mouth hung open and eyebrows shot up — the whole, embarrassing thing. Granted it lasted for about three seconds and Kinkade was almost a second too late to catch even a glimpse of it, but it still wasn’t his habit to be so easily caught off-guard.

“Well, they aren’t my parents and they don’t give a shit?”, Zero said slowly, quirking a brow. Kinkade finally took his eyes off his textbook and looked up at him. Zero went from slightly taken aback to genuinely dumbfounded. “I’m a foster kid. I thought someone would have told you already or something.”

Someone like Raquel, for instance, prone as she was to simply just babble _all day long_ about things that were, more often than _not,_ not _even_ her business. He was frankly surprised because at this point he just thought that Kinkade had found out about it, one way or another — perhaps just not the creepy and depressing side of it.

“Actually no, but it’s not like I asked for a full background check either,” Kinkade said, and Zero let out a snort. “So it’s a permanent thing?”

Zero shrugged and rested his back against the side of the bed. “Guess so? It’s been, like, twelve years or something.”

Kinkade seemed to take a second to process it, probably trying to think of the right thing to say. He then closed his textbook and turned towards him. Zero entirely blamed the way his stomach churned on the fact that he was definitely expecting some obnoxious life advice from the crazy-spoiled kid sitting next to him. “You mind me asking?” he said after a pause, and Zero halfheartedly made a small gesture, as if to say ‘fire away’. “What happened with your parents?”

“Complicated,” Zero waved, as he stretched out his legs. “Last time I saw my mom, I was maybe four or five. And my dad, well, I guess I’ve got one, supposedly. Don’t really fancy myself as another Jesus y’know, so he must be somewhere. Just not around. Never was,” he concluded, before clearing his throat. “At least neither of them gets on my nerves for a stupid school-night party.”

He was doing his best not to look up too often at Kinkade, but it was weird having him stare so openly at him, as if he was trying to gauge him — or, rather, the amount of shit he would get himself into by helping out a kid of his kind.

“I guess that’s a fair point,” Kinkade said after a moment.

Zero gave him a lopsided smile. “I guess it is.”

 _There must be one_ , he added to himself.


	7. Jude

Jude rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling at 7am when his alarm went off, about half an hour after waking up. It was happening more and more often these days, the last couple of years having trained his body (and his brain) to be an early riser. Back at Ellis Harwood, he didn’t have much of a choice, given that his daily schedule started with morning practice for the Swim Team. Cold water, grumbling stomach, bleary eyes, that’s what he had put up with for years. Now he didn’t have anything to do but listen to the big house waking up slowly and filling itself with the personnel.

“It’s mildly depressing,” he had confided to Raquel. “Everyone’s got something to look forward to. Jelena and Kyle have the Squad, the guys have Basketball… I’m literally just waiting for time to pass by.”

“Why don’t you join a club?” she had suggested. “I could see you on the Debate Team or something.”

He scrunched his nose a bit. “Yeah, maybe.”

Debate Team sounded nice, but not nice enough. Truth be told, he had often been accused in the past of not being able to get an idea out of his head once it was implanted there — what he wanted was to make it onto the Swim Team, plain and simple. He hadn’t seen much of the school counselor so far, mostly because he was one of those straight-A students who people automatically assumed were brilliant enough to get it all by themselves, but he felt like he could pay a visit to the man, if only to be directed to the right person.

“It’s wonderful that you wish to join the team,” Mr. Warren had said enthusiastically when Jude dropped by his office on Monday morning. “Coach Stappord could really use some new strength in her corner. One of her varsity team members just left this year.”

Jude had politely thanked the man for any helpful information, but he hadn’t planned on giving this meeting any follow-up, mostly because as much as he wanted to do something with himself to avoid the depressing sight of his silent bedroom, it also meant quitting the tutoring sessions with Zero — or at least reduce them drastically. Objectively he knew Zero wasn’t his responsibility, and more importantly, he knew that he shouldn’t have felt anything at the mere idea of seeing less of him.

And yet, the routine where Zero was coming over and staying a few hours every day with him, just the two of them, had started to become something Jude was looking forward to. It was pathetic. The fact that he had been, once again, ghosted by Connor, was just the cherry on top. After almost a week of more and more Zero, and less and less Connor, Jude had decided that he needed to _man the fuck up_.

“What is this?” Lionel had asked, looking up from her Vogue magazine after Jude handed her a few sheets of paper on Wednesday night.

“I want to go back into swimming,” Jude replied honestly.

Lionel frowned slightly as she discarded her magazine and focused her attention on him. “Would they accept you so late into the fall season?”

You could always count on Lionel to pick up on the details. He shrugged nonchalantly. “I need a coach to stay in shape.”

“Jude, we could pay an Olympic swimmer to be your coach,” Lionel had objected.

Jude sighed. “I know, and as grateful as I am, I can’t just leave my school records empty for the first half of the school year. Maybe it won’t look that interesting compared to the other part since it’s just a public school, but it will look plain weird otherwise.”

It was when Lionel hadn’t replied anything immediately that Jude knew he had won. She took the pen he was handing to her and soon started writing down the details on the parental consent form. “You seem to like this school, after all,” she pointed out as she added the final signature at the bottom of the page.

“It’s alright,” he had admitted carefully.

Warren had assured him that Coach Stappord would be delighted, but Jude was still doubtful. The Swim Coach was a short blonde woman, probably in her early forties, and she looked less than impressed when he first introduced himself on the following day.

“Oh, you’re that prodigal student Mr. Warren told me about,” she said unconvincingly. “He likes to find new talent regardless of his actual job description.”

Jude let it sink in for a second, but he wasn’t going to be defeated so easily. If his dad had taught him one thing, it was to maintain some pride. “I don’t know about prodigal, but I can pull a 100-yard breaststroke in a 1:00.02.”

Jude felt a spark of excitement running up his spine when he pinpointed the exact moment Coach Stappord started to look interested. She slightly tilted her head to the side and the left corner of her mouth seemed to tighten a little. “What about your 200-free? 500?”

He restrained a smirk as he handed her his records. His former Coach liked to play it old school and Jude couldn’t deny that there was a thrilling dramatic effect to it that an email didn’t have. Coach Stappord started to read the first page, with all his best times and his swimmer profile written down.

“55.81 for the 100-fly, that’s impressive, I give you that,” she said with a furrowed brow. “You’ll probably need to work on your frees, but your times are still better than most of my swimmers. Why did you choose our team instead of a club?”

“I need to fill my academic records,” Jude said again, for the third times in three days to three different people. Coach Stappord didn’t pick up on it, which comforted Jude- knowing that it was definitely the best excuse he could probably give. “Mr. Warren told me you had a vacant seat.”

Coach Stappord handed back his file. “True. One of our boys moved away this summer.” The bell rang for the first period. “I guess you’ve got your spot on the team. Meet me at lunch and we will talk this out.”

*

He had always thought that time dragged on whenever there was something to look forward to, but apparently it was a good day and the morning flew by before he barely had time to think about Coach Stappord before lunch kicked in. He exited the classroom before Jelena could catch up to him, and soon found himself walking by the small office that Coach Stappord was sharing with the Cheer Coach and the Volleyball Coach. The Team Captain, Lucas, was dark haired guy, with whom he shared a few classes. His firm handshake seemed to indicate that he was genuinely interested about having him join the team.

“The Coach told me about your times, dude it’s gonna be great to swim together,” he said warmly, after they exited the office side by side. He had offered to guide him around the pool and give him the usual details regarding practice during their lunch break. “We’re up for six to nine swim practices a week, and about three dry lands to complete the workout part, but really we do mostly five to six. Eight is just the week prior to a meet. What was your former school again?”

“Ellis Harwood Institute,” Jude replied before adding: “In Maine. It’s a private school.”

“Wow,” Lucas snorted. “You got a reputation, huh? So, Ben left us this summer, I guess Coach told you already. Most people are cool, you’ll see.”

Jude was tempted to ask who the remaining people were but he held his tongue. The pool facilities were nothing he hadn’t seen already, so it didn’t take them long before they walked out. Lucas suggested that he could maybe introduce him to some of the swimmers, since the Seniors on the team generally had lunch together. The group, sitting down at an exterior table, was composed of three boys and four girls, the rest of the team being Juniors and Sophomores.

“Guys,” Lucas said casually as they hovered next to their table. “We have a brand new addition to the team. Jude, these guys are Jeremiah, Lyle, Mason, then Chloe, Jess, and Teresa… And Emmy, but she’s a junior on free-period,” Lucas said, gesturing as he introduced everyone.

Jude restrained a groan when he remembered that Emmy was the one who had been trying so hard to get him to come to her party before Jelena had to put a stop to it.

“I didn’t know we were replacing Ben,” a girl with frizzy red hair (Jess, if his instant memory was working properly) said in a grumble.

“Well, me neither but Jude over here is like, the perfect addition, right Jude?”

“Guess so,” Jude admitted carefully. “Sorry I kinda barged in now.”

“Don’t worry it’s fine,” Emmy said with a big smile.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and Jude reached for it. It was a text from Raquel, wondering where he was. Lunchtime was almost over and he still had to grab something to eat. Lucas probably thought the same because, after Jude fired a quick little white lie to his friend about seeing his school counselor, Lucas was suggesting they should go buy something to eat before it’s too late.

“It went better than I thought,” Lucas admitted as they walked away, and Jude started laughing. “Jess is Ben’s girlfriend, or _was_. I don’t really know what their deal is now that he’s gone to Colorado. Oh, and Jeremiah is my co-Captain. He’s also Coach Stappord’s son, but she’s really all about treating everyone the same, so it’s fine.”

“Anything I should know? Like the one who’s most likely to drown me?” he snorted as they entered the short cue.

Lucas faked offense and nudged him. “I don’t know what you’ve been up to but we are civilized people.” Then he glanced at him. “Okay, maybe Lyle. And maybe Jess will be mopping a little but that’s more about Ben leaving than you joining.”

“Guess that’s understandable,” Jude admitted, picking up an empty tray and handing one to Lucas.

“With Lyle, it’s not personal, it never is,” Lucas shrugged. “He’s just one of those who like to be the best. With Ben gone he’s been the best in the 100-fly category. Most of us do it for fun though.”

“You don’t really have that reputation,” Jude didn’t resist the need to add.

Lucas started laughing. “Well, we do it for fun but that doesn’t mean we aren’t good at it.”

*

“So you really are a swimmer now?” Raquel cried from behind the closed door of the bathroom.

“You’re kind of late, I’ve been a swimmer for a decade,” Jude replied, scrolling down his Twitter feed.

There was a particular reason why he had delayed going to the Saldanas’ for so long, even though Raquel had been repeatedly trying to get him to tag along with the rest of the group, it was in large part because he didn’t want to find himself face to face with Clara Saldana, her mother — not if he could help it. Ironically, a lot of his childhood memories involved her and her daughter, and if he focused enough, he could remember birthday parties and playdates by the pool in either of their backyards. But the first thing that automatically came to his mind was the disastrous summer he had spent in his grandparents’ Victorian house, right after his mom had died. His last memory of Clara was shortly thereafter, when she had been asking, slowly and carefully, a hundred questions about his dad. It was the last time he had seen the Saldanas, mom and daughter alike, and when his dad told him it was for the best, he had genuinely believed so.

But that was ten years ago. And when Raquel insisted that he go with her back to her place to give his opinion on her Halloween costume, he hadn’t really found a convincing excuse not to. The fact that, as a surgeon, her mother was supposed to be busy probably had him caving in more easily.

“You know what I mean,” Raquel snorted. “So you’re going to hang out with them now?”

Jude looked up from his phone and stared thoughtfully at the door. “They didn’t strike me as bad people, you know. Lucas seems like a nice guy.”

“Lucas Goodyear? You’re kidding, right? He’s the _worst_ of them all,” she exclaimed.

Jude looked up, confused, trying to picture what was wrong with the guy he had spent lunch with. But as far as he was concerned, Lucas hadn’t seemed to be that much of an asshole — and God knew how much experience he had dealing with assholes back in boarding school.

“No less than a month ago he made a bet with his dummy buddy, Lyle Burton, to ask out then stand up my friend Isa at Homecoming. I’d have ripped off his smug face given the chance,” Raquel groaned bitterly.

It’s incredible how much drama could happen on that one particular night, Jude noted bluntly. Of course, Zero had set the bar pretty high, if the rumors had been any indication so far. It felt weird, if he was being honest. He hadn’t even been aware of all of these people’s existence at the time it had happened, and yet he still had no trouble picturing it. For a reason that was all too evident to him, imagining Zero’s face as emotions rushed in was the hardest.

“Oh, and, forget Zero,” Raquel said again, making Jude startle violently, to the point that he dropped his phone onto his lap.

Thank God she wasn’t there to witness it.

“What do you mean?” Jude tried to keep his voice steady but he was also fighting a stupid rush of adrenaline at the same time.

“Kyle’s never around when I need her to put in the subtitles,” Raquel grumbled. “Zero dated Lucas’ twin sister.”

Jude frowned. “Sadie?”

He was trying to picture how on Earth she could be Lucas’ twin sister, but then he remembered that her last name wasn’t Goodyear. Jesus, how many girlfriends did he have? And why, _why_ couldn’t he just stop his insides from twisting at the mere thought of Zero with anybody _at all_?

Raquel laughed from the bathroom. “Oh no, the one before that, I think? Ginny. Anyway, ever since then it’s been war between Lucas and him. I’m not trying to make you regret your choice, if you like swimming, go ahead, but you can call it quits with Zero if you count on being friends with Lucas.”

Jude eventually scoffed. “That’s bullshit! I can be friends with both.”

If anything, he doubted that Zero would give a damn as long as he just didn’t talk about Lucas or forced them to sit an afternoon in the same room. There was a brief moment of silence, then the door opened a little, hanging slightly ajar.

“Look, there’s a rumor about- er, well about Lucas being gay,” Raquel said from the bathroom.

“Raquel, it’s high school. That’s literally the first insult everyone can come up with…”

“I’m just saying! You’re new around there. I’ll give you all the cards I have so you don’t find yourself in an awkward situation someday.” He didn’t have the time to give it any thought at all, before she left the bathroom and padded into her bedroom. “What do you think?” she asked, turning on the spot.

She was wearing the latest version of the Wonder Woman costume on the market.

“It looks nice,” Jude said, sincere.

The costume seemed believable enough not to resemble those awful parodies of the last thirty years or so, with screaming colors and polyester skirts. For a second he was left to wonder if this year, in his former circle of friends, some girl would flaunt a real-set costume like they so often did in the past. Maybe someone would be tall and slender enough to pride themselves with Gal Gadot’s real costume.

“Really, it’s great. You look great.”

Raquel grinned broadly and started adjusting her bracelets in front of the full-length mirror. “What about you?” she asked.

Jude winced. “Not gonna lie, I kinda hoped you would help me on this one?”

“We could pull an Edward Cullen thing with your hair color,” she said, grinning.

“That’s _not_ going to happen,” Jude laughed, shaking his head.

“Okay, okay. Let me think for a second,” she said, waving with her hands. She stared at him intensely for an eternity and Jude was about to cave in for the Edward Cullen thing just so she would stop, when she suddenly clasped her hands together. “I just had the best idea,” she exclaimed.

“What is going on here?” a voice interrupted.

They both startled and their heads snapped to the entrance of the bedroom. Raquel’s mother was standing in the doorway, her purse thrown on her shoulder, her vest hanging off her arm, and her brown eyes piercing holes in his skin.

“You’re home early,” Raquel pointed out, brow furrowed.

“One of my surgeries was cancelled,” Mrs. Saldana said, without taking her eyes off Jude. “We told you we didn’t want boys in your bedroom.”

“Mom, it’s no big deal,” Raquel said. “Besides, you remember Jude, right?”

Uh oh. He doubted that was a good thing to ask. Judging by the look on her mother’s face, Mrs. Saldana probably thought the same. “Yes. I remember. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d like to talk to you.”

“We are just talking about Halloween costumes. There’s nothing going on. You’re embarrassing me,” Raquel protested.

“Actually, I’m leaving,” Jude said, standing up from the bed. “Nice outfit, really.”

“I’ll text you my idea,” Raquel yelled as he exited the bedroom with a polite nod to her mother.

*

Jude thanked Ludovico, the security Chief, when the gate opened to allow him inside the property. He followed the usual path to the front of the house, through the maze of exotic trees that had been added the year before under Lionel’s command. It was likely because he was still feeling the glare of Raquel’s mother on his skin that he probably missed, for a second, the huge Lamborghini parked outside.

Really huge. And really orange.

He frowned from behind the steering wheel, trying to put the pieces together, but the presence of Gary, Lionel’s chauffeur, forced him to keep his mind on track not to roll over the poor guy. Jude grabbed his phone and climbed out of the car, handing his keys to Gary so he could put it back in the garage.

The door of the Lamborghini opened, and Jude almost dropped his phone flat on the ground as he saw a tall, slender guy exit the vehicle nonchalantly, his black hair thrown back when he took off his sunglasses.

Connor fucking Studwick.

In all his goddamn glory.

Jude’s breath caught in his throat, and not in a pleasant way. Not in a way that he could mistake his own emotion for amazed surprise. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his grip tightening around his phone, as Connor slammed the door of his car shut.

Connor tilted his head, his dark eyes meeting with his own. “I got your texts,” he said.

That was so fucking him, Jude thought. Take everything for granted. Feel like the world owed him fucking something. _You don’t get to behave like that with me_ , he wanted to yell. He wasn’t disposable. Going to a public school hadn’t magically made him think of himself as a middle-class boy all of a sudden.

“Well, yeah, according to Apple you even got them a week ago,” Jude retorted bitterly. He turned on his heels but Connor grabbed him by the wrist.

“C’mon. Don’t be all pissy, J. I needed time.”

“Time,” Jude laughed, dryly, as Connor released his arm. “For what? To remember how to spell ‘hello’?”

“To figure shit out!” he protested. “It’s not- it’s been a busy month for me…with my new school and stuff…”

A busy month, a freaking busy month. Almost everything he had done in the past four weeks was on display on _freaking Instagram_. Beaches, getaways in Barbados, new friends... Wealthy friends, _female friends_.

“Can we go inside?” he sighed after a moment of them just standing there in awkward silence. He glanced behind his shoulder, where Gary had disappeared with the Porsche Cayenne a few moments before. 

“No,” Jude blurted. “So what, you just think I sat here waiting for you to _call_ _me_ _back_?”

Connor snorted, shoving his hands into his pockets. “No, but it’s a public school. They just, like, expect you to attend and that’s it. You know it’s different for our schools.”

“Do you realize I don’t even know where you’re studying right now?” Jude exclaimed, gesturing angrily with his arm. “It’s like you’re afraid I’d barge in and tell everyone your big, dirty secret!”

Connor was shaking his head, then eventually blurted out: “Just listen to me! My parents got me a spot at Trinity. You could join too, in January.”

Jude stared at him, taken aback. “You want me to come with you,” he said, voice blunt.

Connor shrugged. “Well, yeah. It’s not like you’ve got anything here.”

“I’ve got my family,” Jude countered uselessly.

Immediately, Connor scoffed. “Oh, please. Your dad doesn’t give a fuck about you, you never stopped saying so for as long as I’ve known you.”

Jude swallowed and crossed his arms over his chest, firmly planting his two feet on the ground. “Alright, say I’m coming. What are we going to be?”

It was Connor’s turn to gap for a second, long enough to let it sink in, it was a rare occurrence in his demeanor. Probably the first time Jude had seen him without anything to fire back. It hurt him a little bit more. “Why do you have to make everything complicated?” he huffed.

“I just want an answer!” Jude demanded.

It was stupid, it was foolish. Worse, it was suicidal. He knew what was about to happen, what was _bound_ to happen. He had four fucking weeks to think it through, waiting for the asshole’s texts and calls, desperate for even the slightest sign from him.

“We could go back to what we had,” Connor said, stepping closer. “Where we left off. There’s no need to make anything more complicated than it used to be.”

Jude held himself together, his arms still folded in front of him for protection. “You seriously think I’d leave everyone hanging just to be with you?” he scoffed, accusingly, then he added, a tone lower on instinct: “Just so you could fuck me in private and then pretend we’re just buddies?”

“That’s ironic coming from someone who isn’t out himself,” Connor retorted, his dark-brown eyes gleaming furiously. 

“That’s the difference between you and me, Studwick,” Jude bit back. “I’m trying to think of a proper way to make it smooth for the day I decide to change that, while you’re just trying to come up with another hundred fucking ways to hide it even better.”

“I miss you for fuck’s sake,” Connor hissed. “I’ve come all the way here to get you to come with me to New York, isn’t that enough?”

“What you miss is _fucking_ _me_ ,” Jude whisper-screamed again. “I guess your girls didn’t satisfy you enough.”

Connor’s jaw clenched, his jawbone rolling under the smooth skin. “We never fucked.”

It was as though an ice bucket washed over him. “What?” he asked, his voice faltering.

“You heard me, Kinkade. You and I, we never fucked,” Connor said, walking right into his personal space, bitter and furious. “Maybe that’s what you want? How about we go inside and do it now?”

Jude felt his cheeks redden, but it wasn’t from embarrassment, it was pure anger. It was burning as if he had hit him, slapped him right across the face. That’s what he had wanted all summer long. That’s what he had wanted from Connor, to just experience sex like a normal thing between two people linked by feelings. Why did he have to turn it into something ugly? It hurt more than the ghosting. More than all those times he had brushed off his feelings, more than all those times he had discarded him after kissing him senseless.

“Just get out of here,” Jude whispered, and once again when he tried to turn on his heels, Connor’s hand shot up to grab his wrist.

“No, apparently, you need to remember how good it was when it was just you and me-”

“Don’t touch me,” Jude hissed, batting his hands away. “You don’t get to freaking touch me!”

“What the hell do you _want_ then?” Connor yelled back. “I don’t get you!”

“I want you out of here,” Jude said again. “Get out of here or I’m calling the security.”


	8. Zero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry for the long wait between the two updates 😔🤧 as i've said before i had to change my computer and things got a little rocky for a while, but now things should get back to normal 🤗

Parties at Wall’s were always a blast. Ballers had a reputation for being fun and welcoming, the best buds everyone wished they had, and the fact that this year Terrence’s little brother, Clarence, was in his freshman year meant that probably more than half the population of Hollow Creek High was in attendance. That would have been fine if that didn’t mean more drunk people than usual and the presence of his ex-girlfriend and her group of friends on top of things.

Zero was observing people from his spot on the L shaped staircase. Most were already too drunk to give a damn about seeing him on his own, but that didn’t stop them from leering every now and then at his bare chest. “I’m not saying you found your career path with those,” Kyle had said, tugging at the suspenders of his firefighter outfit about half an hour ago, “but you should probably put your tee-shirt back on if you don’t wanna end up mistaken for a stripper.”

“You’re too drunk to give a damn about this place becoming a goddamn stinking sweat-lodge hell,” Zero had retorted bluntly, shrugging. “I’m not.”

She laughed and proceeded to take a couple of selfies with him, showing off her costume in front of everybody ever since the beginning of the night. She had dropped her initial idea (Harley Quinn) two or three days ago, when Zero had eventually told her that the reason why Sadie looked like she wanted to rip her skin off every time they crossed paths was because she was convinced there was something happening between them.

Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Ever since then, Kyle has been reveling in her new-found amusement — literally plastering herself all over Zero whenever Sadie was in sight, which also included things like casually sliding into his lap in the middle of a conversation during lunchtime. There had been some awkward moments with the Gang in the past few days, but Zero was prideful enough to consider it a legitimate payback, after openly pretending _he was being the ass_. What did it have to do with her Halloween outfit, you’d ask? Everything. Zero himself was _literally_ her Halloween costume, or rather, his Basketball jersey. Kyle was pretending it was just a mere ‘sexy Basketball player’ uniform, but really, no one was dumb enough to think so. She was wearing his jersey, thigh-high yellow socks from her cheer uniform, a pair of wedge Nike heels, and Zero had only accepted to let her wander out of sight when she swore to him she was indeed wearing a pair of shorts underneath.

“Careful, or else I’m gonna think you’re worried about me,” she had chuckled, patting his cheek playfully before sauntering her way through the crowd.

Zero wasn’t usually playing it lone wolf during parties. He had spent most of the night hanging out with his friends and various other people, until Derek had gone for a refill and hadn’t returned. Zero figured he could try to find him, just for the sake of having something to do. From his spot halfway through the staircase, he had a distinctive view of the Walls’ large living room and dining room, and he caught sight of Jelena dressed as a flapper, laughing with girls from the cheerleading squad, next to the most useless fireplace in the world (who needed a fireplace in California?). Her boyfriend was on the far corner of the room — he had accepted to dress as a gangster to match her era and Zero could only imagine how much he was regretting it now that the temperature inside the house had gone insane.

Zero started walking his way towards him, until he realized that the guy he was talking to was Tommy Bakerson, the baseball player.

Tommy ‘pretty-boy’ Bakerson.

Tommy ‘I-hit-on-guys-when-I’m-drunk’ Bakerson.

Tommy ‘I-almost-kissed-you-last-year’ Bakerson.

Zero bit his bottom lip, halfway through the living-room he suddenly took a right. Tommy Bakerson was the freaking reason why he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep for like, a week, around the same time last year, because every night was just bringing up more and more questions. Tommy had been so close to kissing him that Zero could distinctly remember feeling his breath on his skin.

He shook himself out of his stupid thoughts, going back to searching for Roman instead.

It shouldn’t be that hard to find him, out of the three or four pirates he had seen since the beginning of the night, Derek was without a doubt the lamest of them all. He batted away a fake spider web as he progressed through the house, growled his way through a group of people hanging out in the kitchen, and eventually found Roman near the door leading to the basement. He was talking to a psychotic nurse, and if the fact that _Derek_ _Roman_ was grinning broadly didn’t discourage Zero from joining them, hearing them _giggle_ definitely convinced him to change plans.

 _Nope_.

Zero decided to go upstairs and kick out whoever was in Terrence’s bedroom. It was a bit past 1 am and soon everybody would go home since it was school night — the perfect moment to play some one-on-one quest on Halo. Zero nearly tripped up the stairs, packed with drunken kids making out, and he was still scowling when he reached the next floor, almost missing Kinkade leaning against the wall in the hallway.

It was a surprise, he had thought he would have gone home already considering the first (and only) time he had spotted him earlier that night Kinkade hadn’t looked like he was enjoying himself much. It was a shame because he looked ridiculously handsome, dressed as Maverick, from Top Gun — with the full aviator jumpsuit and the ray-ban sunglasses tucked into his chest pocket. Zero had been willing to try and talk to him, but then Derek had dragged him in the opposite direction.

“Hey, you okay?” Zero asked, showing real concern as he made eye-contact with Kinkade.

“Better than okay,” Kinkade giggled.

Nope, Zero thought bluntly. He wasn’t okay.

It was practically the first time he had seen Kinkade in four days, and it shouldn’t have been a big deal, yet it was. First, because it was the longest they had gone without seeing each other ever since they had started tutoring sessions, and Zero didn’t know how to point that out to anybody without sounding like a stalker or a clingy girlfriend. Then, because Kinkade had cancelled the first two sessions that week, without much more than ‘something came up’ and ‘I have stuff to take care of’, and when Zero had asked if something was wrong, he had been met with strong silence.

And finally, because Kinkade was now part of the swim team, that oh-so-dearly-beloved group of assholes. Zero had been wondering if Kinkade avoiding the Gang had been the first clue that the swimmers had gotten under his skin already. But the fact that he was there, alone, drinking, made him hope that maybe, _maybe_ it wasn’t much more than a schedule conflict.

He huffed a sigh. “C’mon, you can’t even stand still.”

He slid an arm around his waist and dragged him away from the stairs, before he decided to break his neck or something.

“Where are you taking me,” Kinkade whined, still clutching at his cup.

Zero knew better than to argue with a drunk person, so he just walked through the second floor, Kinkade trailing behind him, until he slammed the door of Terrence’s bedroom open. A couple of sophomore kids were playing some stupid game involving cards, but Zero didn’t have much trouble persuading them to get out (Kyle had told him once that it was because, from a drunk perspective, seeing someone sober frankly gave the creeps), and soon he was able to let Kinkade sit on the bed. He nonchalantly chucked the lock on the door closed, so they weren’t forced to deal with people barging in every five seconds.

Zero dropped himself on the bed next to Kinkade, who was clumsily trying to get rid of the upper part of his costume. It wasn’t going so well, given that opening the zipper had been the easy part. After observing him struggle for a few seconds with his sleeves, his cup swaying dangerously between his knees, Zero sighed.

“Can’t believe that between the two of us you’re the one who’s on the way to becoming a billionaire CEO,” Zero mumbled bluntly as he reached for the cup before any permanent damage was done.

He put it on the nightstand, then proceeded to help Kinkade with his jumpsuit. He was wearing a white tank top that did wonders for his chest and his arms, and Zero was forced to look away. When he glanced back, Kinkade had retrieved his cup.

“You should stop drinking,” Zero pointed out.

Kinkade chuckled. “Wha-at? No way. I need that drink!”

“Why?”

“Breakup shit, kind of. Shit,” he summed up after a few seconds of squinting.

Zero frowned, confused. “What breakup? You’re single, dummy.”

Kinkade shook his head. “Nuh-uh.” He bit at the edge of his cup. “My boyfriend,” he said, then stopped abruptly and Zero’s stomach dropped. “My boyfriend wanted- but I said no,” he then paused and looked at him like he was absolutely convinced that he could follow his train of thoughts. “I _said no_. And he’s not even my boyfriend, and I wanted him to be but he just didn’t care enough, and he’s back to New York now. I had a freaking life, freaking people, _people_ , and now it’s all gone, and it’s so, _so sad_.”

Zero opened his mouth and closed it a couple times, not sure what to say. Should he pretend that it never happened? Was it even _real_? Was Jude freaking Kinkade _gay_? Woah, don’t go there, his brain told him bluntly. _Don’t go there_.

“You don’t look sad,” Zero said, quirking a brow as Kinkade giggled, dropping himself to lay on the mattress.

“That’s because I’m drunk,” he grinned, closing his eyes. “I _love_ being drunk, it’s funny, it’s like everything is easy and everyone is pretty and cool and nothing is a big deal. ‘Course you’re hot _all_ the time and dude, it doesn’t change and I’m so freaking relieved you know because I don’t want to live in a world where you’re not hot when I’m buzzed.” He opened his eyes and glanced at him. “I love being drunk, did I say that already?”

“Er… Amongst other things,” Zero winced, not sure what to say.

All that rush of information was making a completely different kind of rush surge inside of him. He just couldn’t have Kinkade telling him he found him hot so casually, or something really embarrassing would happen.

Kinkade was still grinning at the ceiling. That innocent idiot.

Zero grabbed the cup from his hands and sniffed the weird looking beverage, just so he could try to pinpoint how much shit he was going to be put through until the party was over. 

He winced and pulled a face. “What the fuck is that? Did you steal detergent or what?”

“Gimme that back,” Kinkade pouted glancing at him from the mattress. “It’s so good, _really_ good. You don’t know shit about what’s good.” Then he just… grinned. Broadly, like the Cheshire Cat: mildly scary, mostly cute, and a little bit disappointing, because he was wasted as hell. “Hey, you’re a firefighter!”

“You’re a smartass when you’re drunk, you know that, right?” Zero rolled his eyes, but his voice lacked its usual bite. He just couldn’t be himself when Kinkade wasn’t.

“You’re a firefighter- and you’re smokin’ hot,” he said, laughing.

 _Oh jeez_ , Zero thought, mentally facepalming himself.

“Are you done?” he asked with a sigh.

Kinkade eyed him up and down and Zero felt downright naked now. All things considered _maybe_ the suspenders made him look like a stripper. He fought the need to cross his arms over his bare chest.

“You’re smokin’ hot,” Kinkade repeated.

“I get it, I get it,” Zero mumbled.

Kinkade was wasted. He didn’t mean any of it. He would probably be talking to the door handle if he hadn’t dragged him inside. There were times at every party where Zero generally hated being the only one sober, but rarely with the intensity he was feeling now. Everything looked funnier when you were tipsy, apparently.

Zero grabbed the cup from Kinkade’s hands and took the last sip. It would likely not be enough for him to feel anything, but it was better in his stomach than in Kinkade’s (or on the carpet). Holy fuck, Zero thought, tears welling up in his eyes as the burning of the crazy shit he had been drinking was making its way through his body. Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up, he told himself. He turned his face away as he grimaced and almost gagged.

“My _cup_ ,” Kinkade pouted.

“What? I can’t have some fun?” Zero said, cocking an eyebrow defiantly.

Kinkade laughed. “Thought you didn’t like it.”

“Plenty of stuff I like that you don’t know about,” Zero said, staring at him right in the eye as he leaned back on his elbows.

Kinkade propped himself up on his elbow mimicking Zero’s pose, and chewed on his bottom lip. “What d’you like?” He reached out, tugging at one of his suspenders and making Zero’s heartbeat shoot up. This was already far too much for his system to process decently. He followed the red material up along his chest, Zero watching his fingers, then he grabbed both suspenders and hauled Zero closer to him. “Do you like being buzzed too?”

Zero snorted. _You’re more than buzzed, man_. “’Course, like everybody else,” he said, and he realized only two seconds too late what he had just said. Lying to a drunk person wasn’t pretty, shame was on him.

Kinkade squinted a little. “Wait, am I pretty when you’re drunk? What if we’re all ugly whenever we feel like everyone else is hot? God it’s so much worse than you being ugly when I’m buzzed.”

“You’re not ugly,” Zero huffed.

Kinkade shook his head and sat up. “Maybe you’re not drunk enough. Hey, let’s go grab some more and you’ll tell me-”

Zero grabbed him by the arm. “Will you shut _up_?” he said, only half annoyed. All his blabber was rather endearing, after all. “You’re hot, okay? Like, freaking hot.”

“It means I’m freaking you out,” Kinkade said, pouting. “You don’t wanna have sex with people who give you the creeps! Or do you? Wait, are you a weirdo?”

Zero swallowed thickly, trying to keep his emotions in check. “Jeez, just- just shut up, okay?”

Kinkade sighed heavily and dropped himself back on the mattress, propped up on an elbow like he originally was. “Are you always a killjoy when you’re drunk?”

“Are you always a goddamn chatterbox when you’re drunk?”

“It’s pretty easy to keep my mouth shut,” Kinkade grinned, leaning forward. “You just have to keep it busy.”

Zero stared at those incredible eyes, and the big smile, and the cute dimples. Their faces were so close, he probably just had to lean forward too and-

And what?

Kiss him like he hadn’t had the balls to kiss Tommy _freaking_ Bakerson?

But Tommy was just cute, maybe funny at best. Tommy was Tommy. He was like the cute barista at Starbucks. He was just a nice looking guy that Zero wouldn’t have minded sharing some oxygen with.

Jude Kinkade wasn’t.

“I-,” Zero said, voice faltering. He tried to regain his composure and leaned back a little. “I gotta find Kyle. I- I promised her mom to take her back home before 2.”

“No,” Kinkade said, a deep frown appearing on his face, and he tried to follow as Zero stood up. “Wait...”

Zero stormed out before he could finish his sentence, bumping into a girl passing by, and he practically ran through the hall to reach the stairs.

*

The next morning was the only good thing about not drinking.

Everyone looked like they were listening to a hammer pounding in their head, and as if even the smallest gesture was causing them great pain. Usually, it just gave him a better angle to tease people mercilessly, since no one could bite back at him. That morning, though, he felt just like everybody else, without even drinking.

In a word, he felt like shit.

It was a sensation that kept annoying him for the rest of the day, and he was fully aware that it was entirely because he hadn’t yet caught sight of Kinkade. One month and he was already part of their group. Not having him around felt alien and weird, even more so considering what had happened the night before — and what had _almost_ happened.

“A chauffeur came to get him,” Raquel shrugged when he casually asked her about him, then she snorted. “Can you believe him?”

Yes, he could, but that was beside the point. He, Terrence and Derek used lunchtime to work off some sweat in the weight room. Zero would have frankly picked another time, and given Derek’s bleary eyes he probably thought just the same, but apparently Terrence wanted to remain Team Captain more than keeping his last meal in his stomach. It was officially November; the season would soon start and it meant that even a thirty-minute session in the weight room was considered proof of self-investment.

“I spent like, half an hour looking for you, last night,” Terrence observed, lifting dumbbells while he spoke.

Zero glanced at him and released the handles of the pec deck station.

“You were supposed to sleep at my place, remember?”

He let out a small groan as he took back the handles of the station. “Yeah, sorry. I had promised Kyle I’d take her home, and then I felt too tired to go back.” He distinctly remembered sending a text though, so it wasn’t like Wall didn’t know about it. He surprised a glance between Derek and Terrence. “What?”

“Nothing,” Terrence shrugged. He went back to lifting the dumbbells, and Roman to pretend to do something with his kettlebell, while Zero started pushing the handles together, focusing on his breathing.

It took another round of ten before the conversation picked up again.

“You aren’t… sleeping with Kyle, are you?” Terrence eventually asked, eyes narrowing.

Zero lost his grip on one of the handles, which slammed back into its initial position, the loud noise echoing in the weight room and making the station tremble. “ _What_?”

“I mean, you’d tell us if there was something with her, right?” Derek enquired carefully, and Zero couldn’t believe they were having this conversation.

He couldn’t even believe they were having it already, _behind his back_ , because really, they weren’t even trying to hide it.

“You’re insane! She’s like my sister,” Zero protested.

“Yeah but all that shit aside, you bailed on me so you could get her home,” Terrence pointed out.

 _Gross_. When on Earth had he acquired that serial fucker reputation again? It was one thing to say that his feud with the Goodyears was his fault, but damn it!

“Plus, you two are all over each other lately, it’s creepy, man,” Derek added.

Zero glared. “She’s just messing with Sadie. Sadie accused me of sabotaging our relationship by spending so much time with Kyle. We aren’t _a thing_. Kyle just does it to get on her nerves.” Wall and Roman exchanged another glance. Zero restrained his need to break something and glared at Roman some more. “Besides, if anyone should be accused of bailing on someone, it’s _you_.”

He scoffed. “Why?”

“You went for a refill and you never came back, dude,” Zero deadpanned. “Who was that hot, murderous nurse you were talking to, by the way?”

Terrence turned to Derek, his face splitting into a huge grin.

Roman side-eyed him. “Okay, fine, that was Ahsha. Ahsha Hayes. But we were just talking.”

Zero was enjoying this new focus far too much to let it die down just like that. “Yeah, you two were just a bit too tipsy to be ‘talking’. You guys were breathing the same air, just admit it, I’m not your mother.”

“We. Were. Just. Talking,” Derek hammered.

Terrence laughed, then stopped abruptly. “Hold on, no, you can’t date her.”

“What?” Zero said.

“Why?” Derek frowned.

Zero grinned at him. “I thought you were _just_ talking.”

“Fuck off,” Roman chided. “Why not?”

“Because of Jelena?!” Terrence replied. He was looking at them like they were supposed to understand something, but he eventually consented to elaborate a little: “ _Ahsha Hayes_. She’s that Junior Jel can’t freaking stand, the one who’s been acting all bossy with the Squad.”

Both Zero and Derek hummed in response. If it was about Jelena, it really wasn’t his business.

Terrence huffed. “Seriously guys, am I the only one who actually listens to the girls when they talk?”

“Well, you’re the one who’s contractually obligated to. We aren’t,” Zero replied bluntly with a casual shrug.

The remaining minutes were spent in constant bickering featuring Terrence whining about his soon-to-be lost evenings and Derek yelling at him that he wasn’t dating anybody. It gave Zero a massive headache, but at least no one was making gross assumptions about him fucking his best friend anymore.

*

Zero was one of those people who did plan things out _beforehand_ , but was generally unlucky enough to have everything backfire anyway. His latest plan was one of those. It was as perfect as he could get it, but it was only when he eventually set it in motion that he realized that maybe, _maybe_ it was lacking a tiny bit of delicacy.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”, Kinkade blurted as the door slammed shut behind them, after Zero had caught him by surprise at the end of his last class, grabbed him by the arm, and shoved him into the first supply closet.

“What the hell is wrong with _you?_!” Zero hissed just as furiously. “Why are you avoiding me?”

Kinkade scoffed. “You’re not the center of my world.”

“Uncalled for, but thanks,” he gritted as he stared at Kinkade, at his messy hair and the bags under his eyes. He suddenly remembered the boy he had _almost_ kissed the night before. He remembered his flushed cheeks, his stupid grin, his laugh. He remembered that Kinkade had come out to him probably without intending to, and suddenly his anger died down a bit. “Seriously, are you- are you okay?”

Kinkade laughed bitterly. “Yes, of course I am! I couldn’t be better, right?”

Zero clenched his jaw and folded his arms. “If you’ve got something to say, just spill it already.”

“Wow. All this time pretending you were not an asshole and look at you! Proving me wrong! Congrats,” Kinkade replied sarcastically, gesturing with his arms as he spoke, and just like that, with a last shake of his head, he tried to push past him to walk out.

Zero immediately slid in front of the door handle. “Hey, you’re not going anywhere! Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“You made fun of me, you asshole!” Kinkade exclaimed, to Zero’s stupefaction. “You just pretended to be fucking drunk, Raquel told me you were fucking sober!”

“I didn’t mean to, okay? You just kept talking and talking-”

“And you never thought that maybe it wasn’t your business to listen?” Kinkade exclaimed. “Or you just wanted to have some freaking fun while outing the new kid, flaunting your fucking abs to keep me _fucking_ _drooling_?”

“I didn’t even know you were gay!” Zero protested. Kinkade stared at him with resentment, then he quickly looked away. Zero sought eye-contact, his arms falling to his sides. “Kinkade, hey, look at me. I haven't told anybody. Alright? And if you don't want me to tell, well I won't, it’s fine!”

He didn’t seem any less fuming, though. At best he was _extremely_ skeptical. “Why would you even do that?”

“What does that mean?” Zero asked, mildly offended. Gossiping was _not_ on the list of things he enjoyed doing, let alone outing a friend (or at least someone he considered a friend, but apparently that was one-sided) against his will.

“I don't know,” Kinkade said coldly, “you haven't exactly given me more than the cold shoulder since I got here.”

Zero’s eyes widened. “That's not true!”

“Oh come on,” he scoffed. “You just started warming up to me because you needed me for your grades.”

“I never begged you to accept! You could have said no if it was a problem.”

“I never said it was.”

“Then why are you convinced I'd brag about you being gay?” Zero bit back.

 _What the fuck is your problem then_?

“Because I don't know you!” Kinkade eventually huffed, angrily starting to gesture with his hands again. “You're never acting the same. It's like you're a different person every time!”

“Oh, c'mon,” Zero snorted.

“What? Is that not true?”

“Well I don't know you either!” he protested.

“Fine!” Kinkade spat, his hands falling onto his hips. “Tell me something that you've never told anyone.”

Zero was taken aback, the frown on his face slowly turning into a quizzical expression. “ _What_?”

“Tell me something that you've never told anyone, and then we will be even,” Kinkade dared, looking right at him.

Zero pursed his lips and looked somewhere else. “This is messed up,” he mumbled.

There was a minute of silence that seemed to last forever, and maybe another one would have been enough for him to simply surrender, and stop pretending he didn’t know what Kinkade was waiting for. But it remained only one minute.

Then Kinkade huffed and shook his head, and Zero’s heart tightened in his chest. “Fine. Tell everyone if you want, for all I care,” he growled, and this time, when he reached for the door handle, Zero didn’t try to stop him. The supply closet was flooded with light as the door flung open into the hallway.

 _What the fuck have you done?_ he asked himself as he ducked his head and stared at his feet.


	9. Jude

It was half past nine before Jude heard from Zero again — not that he expected it. The baller hadn’t shown up for his tutoring session, and Jude was tempted to feel offended about it, if the relief of not having to fight once again had not gotten the best of him. The past four days had been shitty enough for a lifetime without adding any more drama than necessary.

Not only had Connor decided to come out of nowhere on Saturday, but he had the nerve to do it again on Sunday. And by ‘do it again’, he meant, _entering the house_ and introducing himself as his _friend._ Jude had to make an unnerving effort to keep his calm and his composure in front of Lionel, but he had almost lost it when she insisted on having him stay over for brunch. It had taken him approximately five minutes to kick him out of the house after she had left the room, but those were the most exhausting minutes of his entire life. For someone who insisted so much on keeping up appearances, Studwick was incredibly prone to making a scene. The last thing Jude wanted was for something like that to happen while his father was around.

Then there had been that shitty Halloween Party that he didn’t want to think about. His stepmother had been livid when she was told by Gary (that asshole of chauffeur who was supposed to keep his fucking mouth _shut_ ) that he had exceeded curfew by two hours. And _now_ , there was that stupid fight with Zero on top of things, that he wanted to think about _even less_.

The only good news so far was that his third training session with the swim team had proven that he hadn’t lost his edge. A small victory for a pretty fucked up couple of days, if you asked him. And since ‘feeling blue’ turned to annoyance pretty quickly, it wasn’t hard to understand why he was so annoyed when his phone started ringing, with ZERO appearing on the caller ID.

“What?” he sighed when he picked up, after the third ring.

After two or three seconds of silence on his end of the line, Zero started to talk. “My name’s Gideon.” He paused briefly. “It’s not really something people don’t _know_ , I guess they just don’t remember or they don’t care at this point. I’m just… I’m just Zero.”

Something flickered inside of his chest. He didn’t know what he had been expecting by picking up, but it wasn’t that. The statement was quiet and authentic, without any trace of a smirk in his voice. He pressed his lips together, his eyes looking at an invisible spot on his comforter. “Why are you telling me this?” he eventually asked.

“Because you asked for something that people don’t know about me, so I’m giving you one.”

Jude had a small snort and shook his head to himself. “That doesn’t really make us even.”

“Hey, you didn’t specify the terms. It’s not a contest,” Zero protested, but it sounded softer than when they had fought in that closet — like he wasn’t really willing to pick a fight.

Did he? Jude wasn’t sure. Fighting with him had lasted for approximatively five minutes and yet it had drained the last bits of energy he had left in his body. The worst part was that he had felt just the same after fighting with Connor.

 _But neither of them is your boyfriend_.

That was the cruel reality of it all.

“Maybe not, but it’s a far cry from my unintentional coming-out,” Jude pointed out carefully.

“Less drinking, less talking,” Zero chanted, and Jude found himself smiling a little.

There was another pause between them, and he wondered what Zero was up to. What he was doing, how he was standing, what he was wearing even. He remembered a black tee-shirt with something red written on the front that he had seen him wearing once or twice, and that was enough to convince himself that it was what he was wearing right now. That and his pair of light skinny jeans, slightly ripped here and there.

“I wasn’t just mad at you for pretending to be drunk,” Jude confessed quietly.

A part of him didn’t know why he was dragging out the conversation, but he really needed to. It was like he had grown addicted to his voice. Even as pissed at him as he had been just a couple of hours before, he couldn’t quite remember what had bugged him so intensely to the point of _yelling_ at him, instead of seeing that Zero had been wondering why he was avoiding him in the first place.

He took a small breath and added: “I was mad at you because I thought you couldn’t drive if you were drunk, and I was freaking out until Raquel told me you never drink. I felt like… I felt like it was a big joke to you.”

“I’ve got a thick skin,” Zero said after a moment, and he could almost hear the smirk in his voice this time, which made him roll his eyes. “It wasn’t a joke, it’s just that… you know, sometimes stuff just happens and you don’t really think it’s a big deal. I didn’t think you’d notice. I didn’t think you’d remember your name for that matter.”

Jude’s throat tightened as he said: “Well, I remember, as it turns out.” It wasn’t true for everything. But he did remember Zero. He remembered Zero and his suspenders and his hair styled at the back. He remembered the warmth radiating from him and his abs screaming for attention. It was enough to feel his stomach drop and his pulse rise up.

“Are we even now?” Zero asked.

“Not even close.”

Zero laughed and it made his heart melt a little bit more. “Don’t push too hard, Kinkade.”

Jude smiled and this time it felt as if Zero was there, ready to give him that shoulder nudge he always did when he was teasing him. He was about to reply when there was a knock on the door of his bedroom, just a second before it opened.

Jude’s smile froze and his heartbeat shot up, like he had been caught watching porn or something. His dad walked in the doorway, which frankly came as a surprise because last he remembered, he was still supposed to be on a business trip until tomorrow.

“I gotta go,” he said to Zero, and before he could answer, Jude had to hang up, ignoring the pang in his chest as he did so. “Hey dad! I didn’t know you’d be back tonight.”

Jude noticed that he was only wearing a casual Paul Smith sweatshirt instead of his traditional button up. “Well, I didn’t feel like spending another night in Atlanta,” his father waved. “Lionel said you had something to tell me?”

For a second he genuinely didn’t know what it was about, then he almost winced. Oh, right. Lionel might not have been his real mom, but she was incredibly great at parenting, apparently. “Oh, er, I don’t know, maybe that I joined the swim team?” he said, testing the waters.

His dad gave him a look, half-resigned half-annoyed, that made his grey eyes narrow a little. “I don’t think it’s a smart choice to start something you will leave hanging again.”

Jude restrained himself from pouting, crossing his legs on his mattress. “But I like swimming.”

“So much you couldn’t bother to get up early for practice last year?” his dad bit back automatically.

Jude looked down a little, embarrassed. He couldn’t explain to his _dad_ that the very reason he had been so lazy last year was because, with his roommate out at unthinkable hours, he had the room to himself from 6 to 7 and Connor usually snuck in before lacrosse practice.

“Look, I didn’t raise you to be a quitter, son,” his dad said, sliding a hand into his dress pants pocket. “And part of that is learning to choose your battles and not go after things you can’t achieve. If you get kicked out of this team, you’re on your own. I’m not intervening again. Got it?”

“Yeah, okay,” he nodded, and just as his dad was turning to walk out, he let out a small sigh and called out: “Hey, dad?”

His father paused.

“Well… I, I was at this party last night and I, er, I kinda came home late,” he admitted, wincing a little. “I promised it was a one-time thing but Lionel took away my car anyway. I guess that’s what she wants me to tell you.”

Another annoyed glance and Jude was almost surprised that it didn’t end up as an eye-roll. “Fine, I’ll talk to her.”

“Thanks, dad.”

*

“What are you doing here?” Zero asked, slightly frowning.

Thursday night, somewhere between Bel-Air and Mar Vista — which meant somewhere on the western side of Los Angeles. He had been deciphering for an hour about coming all the way here, after spending another hour conversationally (and carefully) trying to persuade Zero’s location out of Kyle. The baller hadn’t been able to make it for a tutoring session because of a shift he had to cover at his workplace. So, Jude had found himself alone in the big, silent house, now that all the staff had left for the night, and his parents had gone to have dinner with acquaintances across town.

There were better evenings to be spent than to be on his own, staring down at his burger while pretending not to mind watching some ‘Game of Thrones’ on an iPad — he didn’t even like the show, really, that’s how much of a shitty evening it had been so far. As friendly as Raquel had been, and as much as talking with Kyle was always refreshing, he just didn’t feel like he knew them well enough to call everyone in to have someone to talk to.

 _No_ , it was better to hunt down the boy you had a crush on through the whole town and pretend there was nothing creepy about showing up where you were not expected. If Jude hadn’t known it was a public space he would have felt really embarrassed now. He shoved his hands in his pockets and followed the fading white line marking the entrance of the basketball court. “I was just passing by… and well, you aren’t exactly invisible, so…”

He was passing by _because_ he was looking for him, but that was a detail he would conveniently leave aside, unless he wanted to look like a creepy stalker. Zero cocked an eyebrow, then huffed a snort and went to pick up the ball.

“Alright, I’ll pretend it makes sense for you to be here. I thought you were grounded or something,” he said, dribbling a couple of times before making a perfect shot through the hoop. He was alluding to the fact that Jude had parked his car on the other side of the road, right in front of the court — difficult to miss.

“I asked my dad for help,” Jude replied casually, sitting on the backrest of a wooden bench standing on the sidelines. Not that Lionel had been pleased to hand him back his car keys, but he intended to remain a good stepson for what it was worth.

Zero turned to him, making the ball jump from one hand to the other a couple of times, with a bewildering ease. “I didn’t know you were the stalker type.”

“You’re not that hard to predict,” Jude countered. “Kyle told me this was your second home.”

“You’re really determined to make me spill all my secrets, aren’t you?” Zero deadpanned. “I thought having my name was enough for you to create a voodoo doll or something.”

“I didn’t- It wasn’t _meant_ that way. I’m just making conversation, relax,” Jude grumbled.

Zero dropped himself on the bench, tucking the ball under it so it wouldn’t roll around. “I spend half of my time hating the people who are supposed to take care of me and the other half searching for ways to avoid them altogether,” he said bluntly, leaning against the backrest. His shoulder was a warm presence against Jude’s leg.

Jude pursed his lips a little, running his palms together. “What are they like?”

Zero huffed. “Hey, this isn’t ‘Twenty Questions’. You already set the rules, your turn.”

Jude rolled his eyes with a snort. “Fair enough,” he complied. “Let’s see… Well, I’ve never been to the beach,” he added, trying to lighten the mood a little. “Here, I mean. I’ve been on Caribbean beaches, on Greek beaches, on Spanish and Australian beaches… But I’ve never been to a Californian beach. I was never really in town often these last few years.”

“I’ve never been out of state,” Zero said after a moment. “I’ve mostly only been to other cities because of basketball tournaments, actually.”

“I turned up hungover to a test at my former school and I almost got expelled,” Jude said, pulling a face.

Zero cocked an eyebrow and Jude could see the ‘Really?’ written in his blue eyes. There was a funny second where Zero seemed about to ask anyway, then he shrugged slightly to himself.

“See? I can surprise you,” Jude drawled.

“Everything that involves you drinking surprises me,” Zero mumbled.

“Why? Because it doesn’t suit my character?” Jude deadpanned.

“Haven’t we covered that topic already?”

Jude cocked his head. “Actually no. So far, you just said that I was too good to skip class and too boring to be a drinker. I’m not sure but I think people usually _like_ something, at the barest minimum, about their friends.”

“Careful, Kinkade, or I’m gonna think you care about my opinion,” Zero smirked.

 _Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t care about anybody else’s but yours._ He wondered when it had become that way, because as far as he could remember, their first couple of encounters hadn’t led him to think he’d ever care about whatever Zero Wasjelevskí could be thinking at all, and not just about him.

“Can’t you be serious for five seconds?”

“This is me being serious,” Zero bit back.

“You forget that I had you squinting hard at a couple of math problems in my bedroom on a daily basis,” Jude retorted. “ _That’s_ what it looks like when you give a shit.”

“I do give a shit,” Zero protested.

Jude raised an eyebrow, dismissing the way his heartbeat was picking up at being so close to Zero. “Prove it.”

There was a brief moment where he thought Zero would brush him off just like he had already done in the supply closet, particularly when he averted his eyes.

“I think I like boys too,” he said, looking into the distance.

Jude swallowed thickly. Holy shit. _Holy-_

 _Don’t make this awkward_.

Far too late for that, the tiny rational part of his brain reminded him. He shouldn’t have stupidly fallen for him from the beginning — because let’s face it, he had, even if _he didn’t want to_ —, and he surely shouldn’t have thrown himself at him while being wasted. Jude’s heart sank a little more. The fact that Zero had a thing, or rather, _thought_ he could have a thing for boys as well didn’t put him anywhere near the top of the list of Zero’s fantasies.

“I didn’t think I’d live to see the day where Jude Kinkade doesn’t have anything to say,” Zero snickered, resting his elbows on the backrest and giving him a small nudge with his hand. 

It was a small gesture, something he might have done to a simple buddy, because that’s what they were supposed to be. _Friends_. Nothing more, nothing less. But some part of him was definitely sure that they had stopped being friends the moment Zero had backed away.

“I’m debating whether I should say ‘I’m sorry’ or not,” Jude admitted.

Zero looked up at him. “Why?”

Jude averted his eyes. “Because I’m the one who put us in that shitty situation. And because I shouldn’t have forced you to… tell me that.”

Objectively he had not known that Zero was attracted to boys. But he had asked, and he couldn’t deny it had been because he was hoping for that particular thing to happen. It made _him_ the asshole in this story, not only for projecting his insecurities onto Zero and for accusing him of having, somehow, talked him into coming out, but for doing the exact same thing two days later. Gosh he really was the worst, he realized as a wave of shame surged on him.

“It’s okay,” Zero said calmly. “It’s not like I didn’t want you to know.”

Jude cleared his throat and leaned forward, resting his elbows onto his knees. “Are we still playing or can I ask something?”

Zero snorted and craned his head up. “Fire away.”

His heartbeat picked up a little. “When did you- Is this something you thought about for long?”

He wasn’t the type to struggle with words usually but he just didn’t know how to ask that without sounding like he was going too far.

“Maye a few years,” Zero admitted. “I wasn’t, like, _struck_ by some sort of discovery, it’s just… you know, been there for a couple of years.”

Jude couldn’t help but wonder who had been the first one to get Zero’s attention. Who had been lucky enough to attract feelings from him? And frankly, it made his insides twist a little at the thought. He was trying so hard not to lose his composure that he almost didn’t hear him as he added: “But it’s been only a few weeks since it became… well, _something_. Something more, I guess.”

And all of a sudden Jude was hyperaware of the incredible blue eyes on him, and cheesy be damned but the world around them stopped existing. It was just his eyes lost in Zero’s and he found that he was perfectly happy like that. His heart drummed in his chest as he suddenly leaned in, closing the distance between them. His lips crashed against Zero’s, perhaps not in the best manner, and the angle was definitely a little weird, but then Zero leaned a little as well, and Jude’s eyes fluttered shut at the feeling.

 _He was kissing back_.

And somehow, Jude was surprised at how soft it felt.

How soft, and true, and _easy_ it felt. Zero’s fingers grazed over his cheek, almost shyly. Was he even shy with anything he was doing? Jude couldn’t give it any deeper thought now, he was too busy overthinking even the slightest touch and the taste of his lips.

The world turned freezing cold when Zero pulled back first. Jude stared at him, a little bit dazed and a little bit stunned, his heartbeat thrumming against his ribcage.

“Damn, I’d never thought you’d be the sappy type,” Zero said bluntly.

An invisible hand grabbed Jude’s heart and started squeezing. Jude pressed his lips together, but he didn’t trust his voice in a moment like this, so he just shook his head and with a huff, albeit shuddering, he leaned back and hopped off the bench.

“Hey, c’mon, Kinkade,” Zero called out, as Jude started walking away. “Jude, I was just kidding!”

And just like that Zero’s hand wrapped around his wrist, making him spin around. Jude’s stomach made a backflip probably worthy of an Olympic medal when his chest collided softly against Zero’s.

“I was just kidding, I’m sorry,” Zero said again, and his voice was trembling a little, as if he was biting back a nervous laughter.

He ducked his head, their foreheads almost touching, and his fingers slowly freed Jude’s wrist.

“That wasn’t funny,” Jude mumbled.

He couldn’t believe Zero had to ruin it. Jude wanted to be mad, if only not to look completely stupid and flustered, but Zero’s hands fell to his sides and forced him to take two or three steps backwards until his back was resting against the fence around the court.

Zero pressed another kiss onto his lips, short, almost tentative. Jude’s hands travelled up his chest hesitantly, fisting into his sweater, secretly afraid that Zero would back away if he let go.

“Are we even now?” Zero whispered with a small smirk.

“Yeah,” Jude said quietly. “Definitely.”


	10. Zero

“You’re in a good mood,” Kyle observed between two periods, suspicion dripping through every word.

Zero shrugged nonchalantly as he retrieved his history textbook from his locker. “Does it bother you?” he asked, barely biting back the smile that had crept up his lips as soon as he had caught sight of Jude on the other side of the hallway.

“No, it’s just unexpected. Did something happen?”

His eyes darted to her. “Not really,” he said. “I don’t have to put up with a cheating girlfriend and my grades are improving. It’s just, you know, a good place I guess.”

Kyle pursed her lips and hummed in response.

Just thinking back to what happened on the basketball court the evening before made him feel ridiculously giddy, and worse, longing for Kinkade. That idiot was good at kissing and an hour spent making out with him had proved to him that he was definitely addicted to it.

After leaving the basketball court, they had spent a few more hours into the night just texting. It wasn’t that it had felt odd to go back to their usual banter, it was a different kind now (with Jude nagging him about the fact that they’d have been more comfortable making out in the backseat of his car rather than against the _fence_ , and Zero arguing that he might have a hell of a reputation but he wasn’t about to spread his legs in the backseat ten minutes after they first kissed), but it simply made him _itch_ to have Kinkade around more than ever before. Problem was, they had no classes in common, literally _none_ whatsoever. Zero hadn’t realized until that very morning, when he tried to think about Jude’s schedule (because the class he was sitting in at the moment was boring, and certainly not because he had turned into a goddamn sap in a couple of hours), that they were mostly on completely different sides of the school all day long.

Lunch time rolled around and with it his only chance to get a few minutes with Jude, for now — assuming they’d have found a way to get away from the Gang. But Terrence dragged him to the weight room again and Zero found it hard to make up a believable excuse at short notice. Tryouts were just around the corner (next Monday, actually), and Zero, just as much as Terrence, was driven by a very peculiar need to show off.

The rest of the day was uneventful at best, and time dragged on until 3. Zero was almost equally nervous and excited upon _finally_ finding himself with Jude long enough to share a full sentence — and some air, but that was just a detail. When he got to the parking lot, Jude and Raquel were talking next to his SUV.

“Hi there,” he said casually as he hovered next to them, shoving his hands in his pockets, and the pair brutally stopped talking, scooting around.

Jude seemed startled, which made Zero frown a little.

“Oh, hey. What’s up?” he said.

“Not much,” Zero replied slowly. He glanced at Raquel. “Is it, like, a bad time or something?”

It wasn’t really how he had pictured meeting again with the same person who had told him the very night before that ‘public indecency would be totally worth it’. There was a silent second that seemed to last more than the fucking last period he had just gone through with every difficulty, before Raquel snorted.

“Like you’ve ever cared about that before.” She turned back to Jude. “I’ll text you tonight. I gotta help my dad with something. See you on Monday guys.”

They both watched as she walked away to her car parked in a different row, then Zero looked over at Jude, feeling a little dampened all of a sudden. He cleared his throat. “Did I do something wrong now?”

Jude turned to him, playing with his car keys. “What? No, not at all,” he said, shrugging slightly. He rubbed the back of his neck a little. “We could, er, maybe get in?”

Zero blinked and nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

The trip to the Kinkades’ was silent at first and Zero wanted to say something but he wasn’t sure what. He was practically sure Jude could hear him breathing and blinking above the sound of the engine, and by the time they reached the gate of the property, he was about to explode. _Did I do something wrong? Do you regret it? Did I see too much in it?_ He tried to remember where he had messed up, but there wasn’t much in the first place. Zero watched the familiar circus of the gate opening, Jude parking the car in front of the house and the usual guy, whatever his name was, picking up the keys to take the car away to some sort of James Bond garage that Zero could only dream of owning someday, all the while being acutely aware of how quiet Jude had been so far. It made his heart beat faster and his skin itch.

He was so used to being under pressure and surrounded by an environment where stress was a permanent component, like oxygen, that he would have never thought to be bothered by something as silly as the silent treatment — and yet, here he was.

Jude threw his backpack over his shoulder and headed to the main entrance, and Zero was left to follow, all the way up the huge staircase and the second floor. If only the personnel weren’t always wandering around, he would have already spat it all out, but out of respect for everyone involved (because yes, he _was_ respectful, thank you very much), he waited for them to reach Jude’s bedroom, and for the door to close shut behind them, before he blurted out the weight on his chest: “Are you going to dump me?”

Jude froze as he was setting his backpack on his bed, mid-movement, and glanced up at him with raised eyebrows. “ _What_?”

“Just so you know, whatever bullshit you heard from _anyone_ , I’m not the type to get dumped,” Zero huffed, the words spilling out of his mouth before he was able to control them or even think them through, “ _I_ dump people, not the other way around.”

Jude leaned back silently, standing next to his bed. “So, by your standards, we are together?”

Zero’s eyes bulged. “What the fu- I’m not a kissing booth you asshole! I don’t go around shoving my tongue down everyone’s throat!”

He was too furious to even think about moving. That little bastard of a rich kid just thought he could play with him and then-

Jude’s face suddenly split into a grin and in two steps he walked right into his personal space, grabbing his face and slotting their mouths together. Zero wanted to argue and to push him away because _what the fucking fuck_ , but Jude’s grip was strong enough to keep him in place, yet not enough to be painful, and when he felt Jude’s tongue graze over his bottom lip, he opened his mouth and let Kinkade deepen the kiss until he was _this close_ to having his knees start to buckle.

They were forced to part for air and Zero was completely stunned when Jude sought eye contact and said, still smiling with his lips red from the kissing: “I’m not dumping you. Don’t even dream about it.”

“O-Okay,” Zero said, almost quietly, and it sounded like a question. Then he regained control of his body, and contact with reality. “ _Hold on a sec_ , why did you just give me the silent treatment then?”

Jude scrunched his nose and eventually let go of him, wrapping his arms around himself as he glanced away. “Everybody says that if I insist on being friends with the swim team, I can call it quits with you.”

Zero’s eyes narrowed. “You can be friends with whoever the hell you want, why would I-,” then he stopped brutally. “Oh, Goodyear.”

Jude seemed embarrassed. “Yeah.”

Truth be told, he might have wanted to crush Goodyear’s face in the past month. Okay, he definitely _would have_ , if Derek hadn’t stopped him just in time, but it was all Lucas’ fault. He didn’t have to open his fucking big mouth and try to have Zero suspended for a full week instead of just the three days last month, just because he was the goddamn head of the student council. But on the other hand…

“It’s okay, really,” Zero said, and Jude’s eyes cleared the last bits of his now formerly wounded pride. “He’s your team captain, it’s normal that you’d need to have him in your corner.”

“You’re not going to be mad at me for spending time with him?” Jude enquired, sounding rather skeptical.

Zero huffed a snort. “I’m not _thrilled_ , because he’s an ass, but my team captain is one of my best friends and not everyone has that chance.”

Jude pulled a face and sat on his bed, Zero daring to do the same. “I’m supposed to spend an evening at his place with the team next Friday. Bonding night or whatever. I thought you’d… I don’t know, I thought you’d feel betrayed or something. Everybody made it sound like it was a no-zone and I kinda walked right through it.”

Zero rubbed his palms together, stretching out his legs. “I’m a jock, first and foremost. You might have figured already that I’m not all that brainy,” he sneered, and before Jude could say something useless, he added: “as long as you’re having fun doing what you’re doing, it’s fine. Just, if he screws you over, I’m definitely gonna smash his head in.”

Jude stared at him, and it almost seemed like he was trying to look unfazed, but the corners of his mouth were slightly cocking up. “Not even a day in and you’re already acting all protective, huh?”

Zero stuck his tongue out (too much time spent with Kyle), and Jude laughed.

He reached behind him to grab his backpack. “So, where were we again? I forgot what we were even doing,” he said, his brow furrowing as he was rummaging to find a pen.

Zero bit at his bottom lip for a second, then he surged forward and crashed their lips together. Jude let out a surprised sound muffled by Zero’s mouth, but then he smiled into the kiss and his backpack was slowly forgotten as it slipped out of his hands and fell to the ground with a soft thump.

“Somewhere around here,” Zero replied, breaking the kiss and planting a peck on his lips in between each word.

*

It was about to be a busy week, Zero had realized this as he was waking up on Monday morning. But it was a nice kind of busy, the kind that made you buzz with some sort of excitement. When you were good, tryouts were just a fun moment where you could boast your skills in front of everybody else, and since the bleachers were open, it was even more fun. The only downside? Since they were trying out first, it was downright impossible to get access to the locker room, which also meant no showers afterwards, and a mess of players’ stuff on the first two rows of the bleachers.

Around forty kids flocked in to try their luck for a spot on the Varsity Team Monday afternoon, already looking nervous and sweaty in their gym t-shirts. It wasn’t hard to pinpoint those who were returning members, since they were sporting, like Zero, their training jerseys from the season before.

Running drills, shooting hoops, tossing and running… Nothing they weren’t used to, but that didn’t stop Wall from having the most concentrated frown on his face. When Robertson looked somewhere else, Derek tossed him a ball that hit him right in the shoulder, and Terrence glared as they were hiding their laughter. Tryouts for the varsity team were supposed to last from 3 to 5, but at 4 Zero was already bored. It was nice to show off but he had already gotten kicked in the leg a handful of times by clumsy (or petty) kids, so now it was just plain unnerving.

Coach Robertson split them all into pairs to work on the defense. Zero got paired with Terry, a red-haired boy he knew vaguely from middle school. It was the first time he was trying out as far as Zero was concerned, which was a little surprising because he wasn’t that bad. Zero got a good run in trying to keep him blocked along the sidelines. After a minute or two of the two of them playing cat and mouse, they were sent back to the sidelines while another pair entered the court. They waited for another couple of minutes for every pairing to be done, then they were divided in two sets of two teams to see how everyone was handling real game conditions. Being in the second set, Zero had to wait for his turn and took the opportunity to grab a sip or two of water.

A sparkle ran up his spine when his eyes tripped over Jude, Raquel and Kyle sitting high up in the bleachers. They were talking together and Jude was gesturing with his hands, like every time he got really invested in what he was saying. He wasn’t supposed to be there, because they had decided to meet directly in the parking lot after his practice with the swim team — but don’t get him wrong, this was definitely a nice surprise.

A loud yell from the court made his head snap to the side and their eyes locked. Zero smirked, but everything seemed to freeze when Jude visibly bit at his bottom lip and looked right in his eyes with a blatant come-and-fuck-me smolder. _That little shit_ , Zero thought as he was forced to break eye-contact, in order to avoid an embarrassing accident. Jude was back to his conversation like nothing had happened when Zero threw a look behind his shoulder a minute later. There would definitely be hell to pay for that, Zero decided.

Playing for the first time since last July and the summer camp, he realized that he was running faster and jumping higher — his game also proved to be more aggressive, but it wasn’t really something he should be proud of.

The new roster was revealed after a heart-warming speech from Robertson, at the end of the session, something about work ethic and cohesion, but it hardly held any surprise.

Soon, Zero found himself climbing into the now familiar Porsche Cayenne.

“Well, well, well,” Jude said, smirking from behind the steering wheel. “That was kinda hot to watch.”

Zero huffed and bit back a grin. “It was as easy as stealing candy from a baby,” he said, waving dismissively.

“Yeah, right, I forget you’re a big bad baller,” Jude snorted.

“Heck yeah I am.”

Jude leaned towards him, looking unimpressed. He’d have felt clearly offended if it had come from anybody else but for some reason it didn’t bug him much coming from him. “Can I have a kiss from my big bad baller then?”

Tempting, but Zero winced a little. “I’m sweaty as fuck, I shouldn’t even sit in your car right now.”

“I’ve known worse,” Jude laughed, and he leaned in anyway to give him a peck on the lips. “You can take a shower at my house if you want.”

Zero could definitely get used to that.

Most, _most_ definitely.

They drove the usual fifteen minute trip to Bel-Air and the Kinkades’ mansion, and they talked about random things until it was time to climb out and go inside the house. The Kinkades were rarely, if ever, at home, and Zero had never even crossed paths with Oscar Kinkade in all the time he had spent here. Lionel Kinkade herself was also a rare occurrence, a silhouette that he had spotted here and there at random times but never talked to. Anything Zero knew about them was either because of whatever Raquel and Kyle had told him, or what he had found looking them up online (he wasn’t proud of it, but at least he wasn’t babbling around and spreading gossip). For all he knew, Oscar Kinkade had very little reputation, outside of being a powerful yet understated multimillionaire — he was only ever speaking up only when it was time for the Democrats to run a campaign on money he, among others, showered them with.

As for Jude’s stepmom, the internet revealed much more about her, for different reasons. She had been famous for over a decade, at a time when the Hiltons were rocking New York and the Kardashians weren’t there yet to rock Los Angeles. What a surprise it had been for Zero to find out that she had been married to Pete _fucking_ Davenport, a legend of the Los Angeles Lakers. All of it somehow didn’t match the few glimpses he had seen of her and the way she had to raise Jude, in complete honesty.

“Don’t you feel a bit lonely here?” Zero asked casually as they entered Jude’s bedroom.

“A bit, yeah, but that’s why I like having you here,” he grinned, before drawing him closer.

Zero’s instinct was to bat him away and lock himself in the bathroom for a good half an hour as payback for making him hard during tryouts, but he realized he couldn’t really talk his body into moving anywhere right now.

He also realized, as he leaned in and started giving him short kisses, that he was positively screwed.

He was _so_ fucking addicted to him.

*

“Fifteen,” Zero announced from his spot, behind the bay-windows of the pool house.

“Fifteen what?” Jude asked, and Zero didn’t have to turn around to know that he had probably not even looked up from his homework.

He did it anyway, padding to the couch where he was sitting. Jude ran his hand through his hair and Zero followed the gesture with a mix of curiosity and fondness. It was pretty cute. What he liked even more was when a strand would fall right in the eyes and he’d lean in to brush it away, make eye contact, and forget about everything they were doing as long as it wasn’t their mouths glued together. Hence why they were in the pool house now, because after a few days spent making out practically from the moment they walked in to the moment he left, they had been on the verge of being busted at least three times and one of them included Lionel Kinkade herself.

They had discarded trigonometry in favor of a break that included sharing oxygen and saliva, when Jude’s stepmom had practically barged in with her interior designer. If Jude hadn’t picked up on her pair of high heels getting brutally closer, that would have been one hell of an awkward situation Zero wasn’t sure Jude was ready to face.

“I’m not really… out,” Jude had explained just after his stepmom and the man had exited the room. “I- I mean it’s not like I don’t want to be, I just never really lived with them all those years, so I’m still, uh, testing the waters, I guess.”

It made sense. What made even more sense was for them to use the pool house for everything they did, be it working or not working, because the risk of anybody walking in on them was divided by a hundred and there were no security cameras to care about.

“Fifteen people,” Zero clarified, plopping down next to him on the white leather couch. “In your house.”

Jude looked up from his homework. “I already told you they aren’t here all the time. And they certainly do not have, like, _quarters_ in the house. It’s 2017, not 1912.”

Zero hummed and leaned his head back against the edge of the couch. “The pool boys are kinda hot. Talk about a cliché.”

“I know we aren’t married but that’s a rude thing to say, just so you know,” Jude replied, scribbling something down.

“I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you.”

Jude huffed a laugh. “You really think I’d hit on a pool boy?”

“I don’t know,” Zero retorted, the thought immediately washing over him in an angry wave.

Jude closed his textbook and set everything on the coffee table he had previously piled in his lap while working. Zero was grumpily staring at an invisible spot on the floor, certainly not expecting it when Jude started moving and, in one swift move, slid into his lap, straddling him. It was a fucking sight to take in, if you asked him… and a bit overwhelming, if you asked his pants. Zero didn’t really know what to do with his hands because right now they were aching to settle onto his hips, maybe even slide under that white t-shirt.

They weren’t already _there_ , were they?

His concerns flew out the window when Jude angled his face and trailed his lips down his neck, making his eyes flutter shut for a few seconds. “I’m not hitting on a pool boy,” Jude said, grinning as he kept pressing small kisses.

Zero let out a groan and he didn’t fight it when his hands shot up and grabbed his hips. “Hey, remember _you_ didn’t want hickeys,” he warned as Jude’s teeth softly grazed over his skin.

Jude hummed in response and replaced them with his lips. If only for a moment, Zero was in freaking heaven. His left hand travelled up Jude’s chest, cupping his face and angling it so he could claim his mouth. There was probably more tongue than intended but it fazed neither of them. It felt filthy, compared to other kisses, but _damn_ , it was good. Zero softly bit at Jude’s bottom lip, prompting a little gasp to escape. His fingers dug a little deeper into his hip, the fabric of his t-shirt wrinkling under his grip.

“Zero,” Jude whispered, sounding breathless as he broke the kiss.

Damn, did he look just as stunned? Jude’s cheeks were a little flushed and his eyes dazed. He looked frankly beautiful, so much it was almost painful. When Jude pulled back a little, Zero realized how embarrassingly hard he had become, which Jude probably felt as well. He didn’t dare to look at Jude’s pants.

_Fuck_.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, embarrassed.

Jude tilted his chin up and pressed a kiss on his cheek, which, for some reason, felt even more intimate. He then proceeded to climb off of him and Zero felt cold and incredibly lonely. Shit, he had screwed up. Maybe he should go. He had obviously put them in an awkward situation and leaving was probably the only way to avoid making things even _more_ awkward.

Two arms slid around his middle, taking him aback. “Let’s cuddle,” Jude said, almost determined, as he wormed his way between Zero’s arms.

“I’m not a cuddler.”

Understatement of the year. He didn’t even know the rules when someone was hugging him. Where did his hands go? How long before it just became plain awkward? Plus, if anything, Sadie wasn’t the cuddly type. Ginny had been but he hadn’t been the most patient boyfriend with her.

“You just need some practice,” Jude shrugged.

Zero maneuvered to get an arm around him but it still felt weird. Jude didn’t have the same reflex as a girl to just… curl into him. It didn’t feel natural and Zero started feeling uneasy, which became pretty obvious as he kept squirming for a couple of minutes. Jude’s arms loosened around him, then he pulled away, releasing him. Zero waited for him to point out that he was as warm as an ice bucket, but instead, he just tugged at his hand as he laid down on the couch. Zero obeyed the silent order and laid back onto his side next to him.

“Better?” Jude asked as they faced each other.

“Better,” Zero replied, and soon Jude drew him closer.

Zero instinctively buried his face in his neck, and his arms naturally circled around his waist. “Much better,” he added quietly as he let his eyes flutter shut.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading and feedbacks are always appreciated 💕🙏


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